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To: JRandomFreeper
And the time of the orbit is roughly the same whether circular or elliptical, given a fixed input of impulse.

The period of an orbit with semimajor axis r is exactly the same as a circular orbit with radius r. I was pointing out that for low eccentricity, the path length of the elliptical orbit is very close to that of the circular orbit, so the average speed is nearly the same, being nearly the same distance divided by exactly the same time.

77 posted on 06/04/2012 8:46:40 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: dr_lew
And while the average speed may be the same... the speed at perigee and apogee may be very divergent? For a highly eliptical orbit?

/johnny

78 posted on 06/04/2012 8:57:49 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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