Gravity Role in Space Travel

Source: Freepik

Ever wonder how precisely accurate that shuttles and spacecrafts have to be to avoid debris, planets, asteroids to get to their destination. Well for one, it is extremely difficult to hit any objects in space as the solar system is astronomically large. For another, these spacecrafts actually use gravity to assist them in reaching their destination. 

Gravity assisting is commonly used to help spacecrafts to increase or decrease their momentum. It is typically used from planets to help the spacecrafts redirect their trajectory. For example, Voyager 2 is a well-known spacecraft, in 1977 it used Jupiter to build a trajectory aimed near Saturn and so on for other planets. 

To understand the trajectory of that could occur with gravity, it results from velocity going in and velocity coming out. For example, if Voyager 2 had an initial velocity that went in towards Jupiter, then Jupiter would have an outwards velocity to push the spacecraft away. Therefore, there would be a resultant velocity through the different angles of the vectors and the spacecraft would then sort of orbit Jupiter and then eventually break off its path.

The new path would gain energy and momentum to allow Voyager 2 to view and do the same to other planets. This type of assistance is common throughout the history of spacecrafts and will continue to play a big role in shaping the travel times and efficiency of these spacecrafts in order to reach their destinations. 

References

NASA. (n.d.-b). Basics of spaceflight: A gravity assist primer - NASA science. NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/learn/basics-of-space-flight/primer/