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RAAN Drift

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Estimate secular RAAN drift caused by Earth's J2 oblateness. This is useful for understanding sun-synchronous orbit design, nodal regression, and why inclination controls the sign of precession.

km
deg
Directioneastward
Semi-latus rectum7,078.13 km

Nodal precession

The node line is where the orbit plane crosses the equator; J2 precession rotates that line over time.

The tilted orbital plane rotates about Earth

eastward 0.9632 deg/day

Inclination

98.00 deg

Altitude

700 km

Annual node motion

351.79 deg/yr

Orbit period

98.77 min

RAAN rate

0.96317 deg/day

1.9457e-7 rad/s

Orbital period

98.77 min

Mean two-body period

Semi-major axis

7,078.1 km

Earth radius plus altitude

Open Source and Easy to Use Elsewhere

This tool is open source and the underlying logic is fully transparent. You can inspect the code, understand the calculations, and contribute improvements. If you want to use the tool in your own website, course page, or learning platform, you can also embed it directly and start from a ready-made iframe setup for this exact tool.

Open source: review the implementation and see how the results are produced.

Embeddable: preview this tool, copy the iframe, and use it in your own site or LMS.