Circular Orbital Velocity implementation

Binding contract

This record describes what an executable surface must bind and validate. It does not claim that a public calculator, package, or production route is deployed.

Record owner

Guth Instruments

Lifecycle

verified-clean

Evidence ID

t4-173

Effect

Computation or source lookup only

Input and validation requirements

• The specification ambiguously allows either orbital radius or altitude but does not define how altitude is converted to radius; it must use r = body_radius + altitude.
• The units for GM, radius, altitude, and output are not explicitly declared in the specification.
• The body-radii table does not specify which radius is used for non-spherical bodies, such as mean, equatorial, or reference radius.
• Reject or explicitly handle altitude values that produce r <= 0; otherwise the division and square root are invalid.
• A missing or incorrect central-body GM or radius table entry produces an incorrect result.
• The formula does not account for atmospheric drag, body rotation, oblateness, third-body perturbations, or non-circular trajectories.
• The empty honest_label is a concern: the result should be labeled as idealized two-body circular-orbit speed, not universally achievable orbital speed.

Required corrections

No binding erratum is attached to this unique-name record. Implementers must still preserve the declared units, domain, and failure behavior.

Inspectable interface fixture

The sample below is evidence for interface and validation tests, not a production implementation.

{
  "inputs": {
    "central_body": "Earth",
    "mu_km3_s2": 398600.4418,
    "body_radius_km": 6378.137,
    "altitude_km": 0,
    "orbital_radius_km": 6378.137
  },
  "expected_outputs": {
    "velocity_km_s": 7.90537
  },
  "working": "r = 6378.137 + 0 = 6378.137 km\nv = √(398600.4418 / 6378.137)\n  = √(62.4948)\n  = 7.90537 km/s"
}

Other records

Sources and evidence

These pointers bind the page to evidence. They do not grant authority or collapse verification into deployment.

• VERIFIED_LEDGER.json
• evidence-tranche4/tranche4-results.json