I want to break free… 🎶 #shorts
When a spacecraft launches on a mission to another planet it must first break free of the Earth’s gravitational field. Once it has done that, it enters interplanetary space, where the dominant force is the gravitational field of the Sun.
The spacecraft begins to follow a curving orbit, around the Sun, which is similar to the orbit of a comet. When this orbit brings it close to its target destination the spacecraft must fire a retrorocket to slow down and allow itself to be captured by the gravitational field of its target. The smaller the target, the more the spacecraft must slow down.
Sometimes passing a planet can result in the spacecraft being accelerated, even without the spacecraft firing any of its thrusters. This is known as the ‘slingshot’ effect. Such ‘gravity assist’ manoeuvres are now a standard part of spaceflight and are used by almost all our interplanetary missions. They take advantage of the fact that the gravitational attraction of the planets can be used to change the trajectory and speed of a spacecraft.
The amount by which the spacecraft speeds up or slows down is determined by whether it is passing behind or in front of the planet as the planet follows its orbit. When the spacecraft leaves the influence of the planet, it follows an orbit on a different course than before.
📹 @EuropeanSpaceAgency
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
Check out our full video catalog: http://bit.ly/SpaceInVideos
Follow us on Twitter: http://bit.ly/ESAonTwitter
On Facebook: http://bit.ly/ESAonFacebook
On Instagram: http://bit.ly/ESAonInstagram
On LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ESAonLinkedIn
On Pinterest: https://bit.ly/ESAonPinterest
On Flickr: http://bit.ly/ESAonFlickr
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
Copyright information about our videos is available here: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Terms_and_Conditions
#ESA
#Jupiter
#JuiceMission
I was actually just making a video about this, glad this popped up on my feed ❤! It’s awesome what ESA and NASA can do together!
THAT WAS A FASCINATING.. FACT 🤩🚀ESA💙
Actually, when the probe does an Earth flyby, you can use this time to do some real-time testing and update the software more easily. That was done for example during the Rosetta mission.
Winding how the math for such a slingshot looks like? I imagine that the approach speed cannot be too high otherwise, it would overshoot