Aerocapture is a technique used to reduce velocity of a spacecraft, arriving at a celestial body with an hyperbolic trajectory, in order to bring it in an orbit with an eccentricity less or equal to 1. It uses the drag created by the atmosphere of the celestial body to decelerate. Only one pass in the atmosphere is required by this technique, by contrast of aerobraking technique. Velocity (symbol: v) is a vector measurement of the rate and direction of motion. ... See lists of astronomical objects for a list of the various lists of astronomical objects in Wikipedia. ... In astrodynamics or celestial mechanics a hyperbolic trajectory is an orbit with the eccentricity greater than 1. ... Eccentric is from the Greek for out of the centre, as opposed to concentric, in the centre. ... See lists of astronomical objects for a list of the various lists of astronomical objects in Wikipedia. ... Categories: Spacecraft propulsion | Stub ...
Similar to aerobraking, but distinct in that it is used to reduce the velocity of a spacecraft flying by a planet so as to place the spacecraft in orbit around the planet with a single atmospheric pass.
Aerocapture could be very useful for planetary orbiters because it would allow a spacecraft to be launched from Earth at high speed, resulting in a short trip time, and then decelerated purely by aerodynamic drag at the target.
An aerocapture maneuver would begin with a shallow approach to the planet, followed by a descent to relatively dense layers of the atmosphere.
The spacecraft must also have suitable surface area and structural strength to produce and survive the required drag, but the deceleration and thus temperatures and pressures are not as significant as reentry or aerocapture.
Aerocapture is a related but more extreme method in which no initial orbit-injection burn is performed.
Instead, the spacecraft plunges deeply into the atmosphere without an initial insertion burn, and emerges from this single pass in the atmosphere with an apoapsis near that of the desired orbit.
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