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Animation of Voyager 1's trajectory from 5 September 1977 to 30 December 1981 Voyager 1· Earth· Jupiter· Saturn· Sun
Animation of Voyager 2's trajectory from 20 August 1977 to 30 December 2000 Voyager 2· Earth· Jupiter· Saturn· Uranus· Neptune· Sun
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Astrodynamics
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Engineering and efficiency
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Gravity assist
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A gravity assist, gravity assist maneuver, swing-by, or generally a gravitational slingshot in orbital mechanics, is a type of spaceflight flyby which makes use of the relative movement (e.g. orbit around the Sun) and gravity of a planet or other astronomical object to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically to save propellant and reduce expense.
Gravity assistance can be used to accelerate a spacecraft, that is, to increase or decrease its speed or redirect its path. The "assist" is provided by the motion of the gravitating body as it pulls on the spacecraft.[1] Any gain or loss of kinetic energy and linear momentum by a passing spacecraft is correspondingly lost or gained by the gravitational body, in accordance with Newton's Third Law. The gravity assist maneuver was first used in 1959 when the Soviet probe Luna 3 photographed the far side of Earth's Moon, and it was used by interplanetary probes from Mariner 10 onward, including the two Voyager probes' notable flybys of Jupiter and Saturn.
^"Section 1: Environment, Chapter 4: Trajectories". Basics of Space Flight. NASA. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
A gravityassist, gravityassist maneuver, swing-by, or generally a gravitational slingshot in orbital mechanics, is a type of spaceflight flyby which...
By later passing near a planet, a probe can gain extra speed with a gravityassist. Every planetary probe was placed into its escape trajectory by a multistage...
other spacecraft making gravity-assist flybys. New Horizons, although eventually targeting Pluto, used Jupiter for a gravityassist and had an extensive...
physics, gravity (from Latin gravitas 'weight') is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things that have mass. Gravity is,...
proposing the use of intermediary bodies' gravity for interplanetary travels, in what is known today as a gravityassist. The size of the "neighborhoods" (or...
reach escape velocity in a single maneuver, and objects can also use a gravityassist to siphon kinetic energy away from large bodies. Precise trajectory...
This allows Venus to be the most accessible destination and a useful gravityassist waypoint for interplanetary flights from Earth. Historically, Venus...
3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The Jupiter flyby provided a gravityassist that increased New Horizons' speed; the flyby also enabled a general...
There have been 46 (including gravity-assist flybys) space missions to the planet Venus. Missions to Venus constitute part of the exploration of Venus...
List of lunar probes and List of Apollo missions. Flybys (such as gravityassists) that were incidental to the main purpose of the mission are also included...
1936 - 16 September 2022) was an American mathematician who developed gravityassist technique when he was a UCLA graduate student and working summers at...
exploratory fly-by mission to Sedna near its perihelion through a Jupiter gravityassist could be completed in 24.5 years. Due to its exceptionally elongated...
Falcon Heavy, during a 21-day launch window. The spacecraft will use gravityassists from Mars in February 2025 and Earth in December 2026, before arriving...
A gravity battery is a type of electricity storage device that stores gravitational energy, the energy stored in an object resulting from a change in...
fields.[citation needed] Most famous propellantless methods are the gravityassist maneuver or gravitational slingshot of a spacecraft accelerating at...
Earth. It is the first instance of a "man-made Lidov-Kozai effect". The gravityassist maneuver was first used in 1959 when Luna 3 photographed the far side...
astrobiology mission focused on Europa. The original Solar Probe design used a gravityassist from Jupiter to enter a polar orbit which dropped almost directly toward...
the University of Padua, Italy, who first proposed the interplanetary gravityassist manoeuvre used by the 1974 Mariner 10 mission, a technique now used...
the STS-34 mission, and arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravityassist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit...
including the first planetary flyby, the planetary orbiter, and the first gravityassist maneuver. Of the 10 vehicles in the Mariner series, seven were successful...
contractor, it is expected to reach Jupiter in July 2031 after four gravityassists and eight years of travel. In December 2034, the spacecraft will enter...
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