496de8c7a9
* Disambiguate python use #1250 Changed all calls to /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/env python3. Removed execute permissions on a lot of files that are not executable. closes #1250
Orbit
The Orbit program uses the SA::EulerCromerIntegrator class to simulate the orbit of a satellite around the Earth.
The altitude of the satellite is chosen to be 408000.0 meters, the approximate altitude of the International Space Station. The initial position, and velocity of the satellite is calculated to maintain a circular orbit around the Earth. The orbital period is also calculated, to determine how long the simulation should run to complete a full orbit.
For each numerical integration time-step, the simulation program prints:
- time (s)
- 2D position vector (m)
- 2D velocity vector (m/s)
to stdout, in Comma Separated Values (CSV) format.
Building & Running the Simulation Program
Generate the results as follows:
$ make
$ ./Orbit > orbit.csv
Plotting the Results
The Python script, plot_position.py is provided to plot the results
in orbit.csv using (Python) matplotlib.
Plot position vector for the orbit duration as follows:
$ python plot_position.py
