Osculating Orbit

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Osculating Orbit

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The ellipse that a satellite would follow after a specific time t (the epoch of osculation) if all forces other than central inverse-square forces ceased to act from time t on. </dd>
An osculating orbit is tangent to the real, perturbed, orbit and has the same velocity at the point of tangency. </dd>

References

This article is based on NASA's Dictionary of Technical Terms for Aerospace Use