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Trajectory
Path of a moving object / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Trajectory (disambiguation).
"Flightpath" redirects here. For other uses, see Flightpath (disambiguation).
A trajectory or flight path is the path that an object with mass in motion follows through space as a function of time. In classical mechanics, a trajectory is defined by Hamiltonian mechanics via canonical coordinates; hence, a complete trajectory is defined by position and momentum, simultaneously.
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The mass might be a projectile or a satellite.[1] For example, it can be an orbit — the path of a planet, asteroid, or comet as it travels around a central mass.
In control theory, a trajectory is a time-ordered set of states of a dynamical system (see e.g. Poincaré map). In discrete mathematics, a trajectory is a sequence of values calculated by the iterated application of a mapping
to an element
of its source.