Product Description
* A complete, stand-alone text for this core aerospace engineering subject
* NEW: updated throughout, with new coverage of perturbations, Lambert’s problem, attitude dynamics, and techniques for numerically integrating orbits
* NEW: more examples and homework problems, more Matlab algorithms
* NEW: improved support material, including instructor solutions manual and lecture PowerPoint slides.
* NEW: Reorganized … More >>
With textbook prices continuing the trend of double every year, it’s about time that a useful text can also be affordable, great text for learning and understanding space flight, includes MatLab algorithms!
Rating: 5 / 5
Took a little longer than I liked to get here (about 6 days) but still well within their delivery estimation
Book is in great condition. Seemed like new to me.
Rating: 4 / 5
I also had Aircraft Structural Analysis textbook written by the same author, which was never updated, unreadable & full of errors. I’d say that Mr. Curtis should stay away from Structure because this textbook is a totally different reading experience compared to the previous book I mentioned before.
First, it is affordable, it only costs me $45 (I bought mine from third party vendor listed on Amazon Marketplace); second, it is readable & actually has examples that the readers could understand. The only thing that annoyed me a bit is the fact that the a lot of the important formulas are not organized or boxed, so readers have to do it manually with pencil. A few chapters, especially chapter 10 needs to contain more example or expanded further in order to enlighten the audience about the material. Going to lecture might improve the readers’ overall experience, so don’t use the book as self study because the vast amount of mathematical derivations could be discouraging.
Rating: 4 / 5
I have dealt with quite a lot of textbooks over the years here at college and as a senior I feel that this text, Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students, is an excellent, well developed textbook. The explanations are very thorough and the examples are numerous enough so that any student can grasp/master the content. I definitely recommend this for any engineering student (especially Aerospace Engineering).
Rating: 5 / 5
Bought this book right before the second edition came out. Some of my classmates bought the second edition, so the class has a mixture of the two books. The professor is constantly pointing out errors and typos in this edition. There is supposedly an errata available, I have not yet found it. Aside from the practice problem and equation numbering, (and correcting the errors) the two editions are essentially the same.
As a text, the explanations of phenomena and derivations of equations are well laid out and can be followed without too much difficulty if you have a good grounding in vector algebra. An understanding of calculus and ordinary differential equations also aids understanding. The MATLAB code found in the appendices is good and can be used as-is or as a starting point for writing your own. If you can get a .pdf of that appendix, though, it makes cut-and-paste-and-run a whole lot easier.
My only other quibble is that the tables with planetary constants (mass, radius, orbit, mu, etc.) are split into two tables and are buried in an appendix, rather than in one table inside the cover. I’ve tabbed that page, but it would make more sense to make those much-referenced figures more accessible.
Rating: 3 / 5