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Eccentricity vector
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In astrodynamics, the eccentricity vector of a conic section orbit is the vector pointing towards the periapsis and with magnitude equal to the orbit's scalar eccentricity. The magnitude is unitless.

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Encyclopedia
In astrodynamics, the eccentricity vector of a conic section orbit is the vector pointing towards the periapsis and with magnitude equal to the orbit's scalar eccentricity. The magnitude is unitless.
Calculation
The eccentricity vector can be calculated from the orbital state vectors and at any time (the result is constant):
where:
Alternatively it can also be computed from orbital angular momentum vector :
where:
Since is defined as , it can be shown by the vector triple product identity that this formula is equivalent to the one above.
See also
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