Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104837 in Books
• Published on: 1972-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 455 pages

Customer Reviews

An excellent introductory text to the subject
This work was written by three instructors at the USAF Academy for use as a textbook. It provides an excellent introduction to astrodynamics. A knowledge of calculus and linear algebra is required, but the derivations are quite reasonable. The diagrams are also very good, enabling the reader to visualize complex spatial orientations.

The book's only weakness is its age. Several real-world examples are out-of-date, and the numerical analysis techniques do not reflect the current state-of-the-art.

Nevertheless, this is the best book to start learning astrodynamics, and gives a solid foundation from which to study more advanced texts.

It was cool
It is a good basic cookbook of rocket science

good basic undergraduate text
Bate, Mueller and White's (BMW) Fundamentals of Astrodynamics was written initially for cadets at the US Air Force Academy to provide them with an overview of space dynamics, coordinate systems and orbital mechanics. BMW is a good "guided tour" of the subject, but has weaknesses in areas such as the two-point boundary-value problem, and in the theory of perturbations. When used as a text or reference handbook for basic two-body orbital problems, BMW is a quick, inexpensive and reliable guide. More sophisticated references should be consulted for more sophisticated problems. A must on every satellite engineer or trajectory analyst's bookshelf.