Expert: Sherman D. - 8/21/2004

Question
A communications company has determined that the most economical orbit for
one of its space labs is an ellipse which has a maximum distance above the
survace of the Earth of 320km and a minimum distance of 160km. Use 6400km
as the radius of the earth and determine the equation of the ellipse.
Estimate the distance travelled by the space lab in one revolution

Thanks for your help :) :)

Answer
from radius of earth
max : 320 + 6400 = 6720km
min : 160 + 6400 = 6560km

((x^2)/(a^2)) + ((y^2)/(b^2)) = 1

where as a = 6720 and b = 6560

so this gives you

((x^2)/((6720)^2))) + ((y^2)/((6560)^2))) = 1

((x^2)/45158400) + ((y^2)/43033600) = 1

as for the last question, according to http://home.att.net/~numericana/answer/ellipse.htm#elliptic

or

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/formulas/faq.ellipse.html

Sorry i couldn't do it for you. To many formulas, not understanding what they ment.