[X] My Assistant

[brellis]

It is often mentioned in various reports that a shuttle, Progress or Soyuz, and now Verne crafts boost the height of the ISS orbit, which loses altitude due to atmospheric drag. Does it also drift laterally?

Does the moon affect the shape of the orbit?


Thanks for any insight!

[djellison]

I'll give this a free pass over the manned-spaceflight discussion ban as it is just about a spacecraft. I don't think the inclination is drifting at all. The inclination is the angle the orbit makes to the equator (roughly speaking)

Careful of the descriptions here - Orbital inclination is NOT changing by 4 degrees per day - that would involve a HUGE amount of energy - Changing Hubble to ISS like inclination involves many km/s of delta-V. Changing by 4 degrees would actually require a lot of energy.