Source link : https://usa365.info/spacecraft-can-brake-in-space-using-drag-%E2%88%92-advancing-craft-agility-space-safety-and-planetary-missions/
Planetary space probes such as Mars Odyssey use a technique called aerobraking to save fuel. NASA/JPL
When you put your hand out the window of a moving car, you feel a force pushing against you called drag. This force opposes a moving vehicle, and it’s part of the reason why your car naturally slows to a stop if you take your foot off the gas pedal. But drag doesn’t just slow down cars.
Aerospace engineers are working on using the drag force in space to develop more fuel-efficient spacecraft and missions, deorbit spacecraft without creating as much space junk, and even place probes in orbit around other planets.
Space is not a complete vacuum − at least not all of it. Earth’s atmosphere gets thinner with altitude, but it has enough air to impart a force of drag on orbiting spacecraft, even up to about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers).
As an aerospace engineering professor, I study how drag affects the movement of spacecraft in orbit. Aerobraking, as the name suggests, is a type of maneuver that uses the thin air in space to apply a drag force in the direction opposite to a spacecraft’s motion, much like braking in a car.
Changing an orbit
In space, aerobraking can change the orbit of a spacecraft while minimizing the use of its propulsion system and fuel.
Spacecraft that orbit around Earth do so in two types of orbits: circular and elliptical. In a circular orbit, the spacecraft is always at the same distance from the center of the Earth. As a result, it’s…
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Author : USA365
Publish date : 2025-05-08 00:47:00
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