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In astrodynamics, the characteristic energy is a measure of the excess specific energy over that required to just barely escape from a massive body. The units are length time, i.e. velocity squared, or energy per mass.
Every object in a 2-body ballistic trajectory has a constant specific orbital energy ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } equal to the sum of its specific kinetic and specific potential energy:
Note that C3 is twice the specific orbital energy ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } of the escaping object.
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