When a
satellite is orbiting the earth in an
elliptic orbit, it has a certain inclination with respect to the earth's
equator. The usual way to change the inclination is perform a maneuver by firing the
rocket engines at the periapsis of the
ellipse. This then forces the
satellite into the desired inclination. There is a substantially more fuel efficient way to change the inclination. This is done by an indirect
route by first doing a maneuver to bring the
satellite to the moon on a BCT (Ballistic Capture Transfer). At the moon, the satellite is in the so called fuzzy boundary or weak stability boundary. A negligibly small maneuver can then bring it back to the earth on a reverse BCT to the desired earth inclination. Another maneuver puts it into the new
ellipse at the earth. In the case of satellites launched from Vandenberg AFB into LEO in a
circular orbit of an altitude of 700 km with an inclination of 34°, approximately 6 km / s is required to change the inclination to 90°. This yields a savings of approximately 13% in
Delta-V as compared to the standard approach which could translate into a significant increase of
payload or perhaps a smaller
launch vehicle. This may have applications to commercial satellite launches for the
Iridium or Teledesic networks and others.