Orbital maneuver

In spaceflight, an orbital maneuver (otherwise known as a burn) is the use of propulsion systems to change the orbit of a spacecraft. For spacecraft far from Earth (for example those in orbits around the Sun) an orbital maneuver is called a deep-space maneuver (DSM). The rest of the flight, especially in a transfer orbit, is called coasting. Tsiolkovsky rocket equation The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, or ideal rocket equation is an equation that is useful for considering vehicles that follow the basic principle of a rocket: where a device that can apply acceleration to itself (a thrust) by expelling part of its mass with high speed and moving due to the conservation of momentum. Specifically, it is a mathematical equation that relates the delta-v (the maximum change of speed of the rocket if no other external forces act) with the effective exhaust velocity and the initial and final mass of a rocket (or other reaction engine.) For any such maneuver (or journey involving a number of such maneuvers): where: is the initial total mass, including propellant, is the final total mass, is the effective exhaust velocity ( where is the specific impulse expressed as a time period and is standard gravity), is delta-v - the maximum change of velocity of the vehicle (with no external forces acting). Delta-v and delta-v budget The applied change in velocity of each maneuver is referred to as delta-v (). The delta-v for all the expected maneuvers are estimated for a mission. They are summarized in a delta-v budget. With a good approximation of the delta-v budget designers can estimate the fuel to payload requirements of the spacecraft using the rocket equation. An "impulsive maneuver" is the mathematical model of a maneuver as an instantaneous change in the spacecraft's velocity (magnitude and/or direction) as illustrated in figure 1. It is the limit case of a burn to generate a particular amount of delta-v, as the burn time tends to zero.