Effects of disturbances
Space Trajectories. Perturbed Motion

The main disturbances are as follows (in brackets the order of magnitude of the ratio between the disturbance acceleration a _p and the central acceleration μ/r ² ):

• irregularities in the Earth's gravitational potential (10 ^–3 due to flattening, 10 ^–6 for other terms);

• attraction of the Moon and Sun (10 ^–7 );

• atmospheric braking (10 ^–6 at 200 km);

• radiation pressure (10 ^–8 ).

Other disturbances...