Space flight is an exciting topic that has captivated the imaginations of many for millennia! Countless astronomers in ancient civilizations have catalogued stars and planets, but it was only up till the very accurate observations by Tycho Brahe (1600) that led to Kepler modelling their kinematics after those observations (1610) as his Laws of Planetary Motion. Eventually, Newton demystified the dynamics of planetary motion too, and published his Laws of Gravitation (1687), which is still prevalent in modern astrodynamics today (2022). Next week, SARC is excited to host an introductory space flight workshop! We will learn about basic orbital mechanics, how to describe orbital shapes, how to describe orbital motion in different coordinate frames, and how do spacecraft maneuver themselves with thrusters in-flight. This workshop runs for two days, 90 minutes each, with small exercises for us to try coding out using Python on Jupyter Lite. No further software installations are necessary.

This is a 2-part workshop taking place on Wednesday, August 3 and Thursday, August 4. Please plan on attending both sessions.

Prerequisite Knowledge: Basic Python, a bit of algebra and calculus, plus some appreciation of high school physics.

Note that pre-registration is encouraged and capacity is limited.

This event is open to Stanford Summer Session students. Masks are encouraged as this program is indoors.

If you need a disability-related accommodation or wheelchair access information, please contact the Diversity & Access Office at disability.access@stanford.edu. Requests should be made one week in advance of the event.