Kepler's Equation for Parabolic and Near-parabolic Orbits

[cdeaglejr]

This HP Prime program solves Kepler’s equation for heliocentric parabolic and near-parabolic orbits. It is based on the numerical method described in Chapter 4 of "Astronomy on the Personal Computer" by Oliver Montenbruck and Thomas Pfleger. This algorithm uses a modified form of Barker’s equation and Stumpff functions to solve this problem.

The software will ask the user for three inputs using the following interactive prompts;

INPUT(tpp, "time wrt perihelion passage (days)");

INPUT(rp, "perihelion radius (AU)");

INPUT(ecc, "orbital eccentricity");

The perihelion radius should be input in astronomical units and the orbital eccentricity input should be >= 1.