aerocapture
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Noun[edit]
aerocapture (countable and uncountable, plural aerocaptures)
- (astronautics) A form of aerobraking in which a spacecraft uses atmospheric drag to decelerate from a hyperbolic trajectory into a closed orbit, eliminating the need for a large orbital-insertion burn and requiring only small correction burns to raise the spacecraft's periapsis out of the atmosphere.
Related terms[edit]
Verb[edit]
aerocapture (third-person singular simple present aerocaptures, present participle aerocapturing, simple past and past participle aerocaptured)
- (intransitive) To perform (an) aerocapture.