Montreal Space Symposium

Orbital mechanics is the field of study of orbits and trajectories for celestial bodies and spacecraft. It plays a key role in the design of any space mission. Many tools and methods are available to the industry and researchers nowadays to help them perform these calculations. However, the space sector is changing and this brings innovitative new ideas and new requirements on the table for space mission design. To keep up, the approaches used in orbital mechanics must also change. This presentation attempts to be a brief introduction to the field of orbital mechanics and to present some of the most important challenges that the discipline of orbital mechanics faces in this modern era of space travel.