Concepts
Gravity Assist
Also Known As Gravitational Slingshot
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A spaceflight technique in which a probe flies close to a planet or moon, using the body's gravity and orbital motion to change the probe's speed and trajectory without expending propellant. The technique made possible missions such as Voyager's grand tour of the outer planets.
Facts
Concept Domain Formulated YearYear Michael Minovitch's trajectory calculations at JPL established the technique's practicality for interplanetary flight. Proposed ByFirst proposed theoretically by Yuri Kondratyuk in a paper written 1918 to 1919 and published in 1938; the maneuver was first used in practice by the Soviet Luna 3 mission in 1959. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Repeated gravity assists made the Voyager grand tour of the outer planets possible.
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