Rate of Change
For an elliptical orbit the rate of change of the specific orbital energy with respect to a change in the semi-major axis is
where
- is the standard gravitational parameter;
- is semi-major axis of the orbit.
In the case of circular orbits, this rate is one half of the gravity at the orbit. This corresponds to the fact that for such orbits the total energy is one half of the potential energy, because the kinetic energy is minus one half of the potential energy.
Read more about this topic: Specific Orbital Energy
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