Sentences with word «aerobraking»

NASA has conducted aerobraking maneuvers the red planet with the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions.

Svedhem said the science team has no observations planned during the year - long aerobraking campaign, but there may be opportunities to turn on the science payload to test new instrument modes.

The spacecraft is using an innovative technique called aerobraking, plowing through the thin upper atmosphere and using aerodynamic drag to fine - tune its orbit.

Right from MGS's first moments at Mars, it was a pioneer: it was the first spacecraft at the Red Planet to use the technique of aerobraking to put itself into its final orbit.

After this brief science instrument demonstration period, which also serves as a test for relaying this data back to Earth, along with data from NASA's Curiosity and Opportunity rovers, the focus turns back to operations and the preparations required to for aerobraking next year.

ESA's Venus Express spacecraft flew deeper into the atmosphere of Venus during its final year of operations in 2014, gathering data about the planet's thick, toxic atmosphere and giving European engineers experience with aerobraking techniques needed on future missions, starting with TGO.

ESA has never attempted aerobraking before, so lessons from the Venus experiment will be valuable for future probes.

The gradual step - down into TGO's aerobraking orbit allows ground controllers to monitor pressures and temperatures on the spacecraft.

Learning more about aerobraking could also be useful for human missions.

Hydrogen propellant could then be cheaply shuttled to stations in Earth orbit on inflatable craft that save on fuel by relying on aerobraking — briefly dipping into Earth's upper atmosphere — to slow down when entering orbit.

For its swansong, Venus Express will perform aerobraking, a way to reduce the speed of a spacecraft and so reduce its altitude.

The conjunction disrupts normal communications with spacecraft at the red planet, so managers want to temporarily raise TGO's orbit to a safer altitude before resuming aerobraking at the end of August.

Gas (from oceans of evaporated water) produced gentle aerobraking, which steadily drew bodies within a sphere of influence closer together.

MGS was launched in 1996 and the MOC was operated by MSSS for 10 years — from calibration and Mars meteorological imaging during the interplanetary cruise phase, through the spacecraft orbit insertion aerobraking period, the MGS primary mission, and multiple extended missions.

Water vapor also provided the necessary aerobraking to merge solid materials into comets, asteroids, and TNOs.

«We have reached this orbit for the first time through aerobraking and with the heaviest orbiter ever sent to the Red Planet, ready to start searching for signs of life from orbit.»

But scientists had faced problems in marrying the European - led rover to the Russian landing system, which will use aerobraking, parachutes, and reverse thrusters.

«The mission controllers have worked intensively with our flight dynamics experts to prepare for this challenging phase — we're go for aerobraking.»

«It's not ESA's first experience with aerobraking, but it is the first time we've used this technique to achieve a planned science orbit, repeating it for such a long duration,» said Michel Denis, ESA's ExoMars flight director.

Mars Global Observer flirted with disaster when one of its solar panels was used for an «aerobraking» man oeuvre, exploiting the friction of the Martian upper atmosphere.

The main science mission will only begin once it reaches a near - circular orbit about 400 km above the planet's surface after a year of «aerobraking» — using the atmosphere to gradually brake and change its orbit.

To save on the cost of hauling fuel to Mars, mission planners used a new technique — aerobraking — to finalize MGS in its orbit around the planet.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a Russian - launched, European - built spacecraft that arrived at Mars in October, is starting to dip into the upper reaches of the red planet's atmosphere in a year - long «aerobraking» campaign place the observatory in the right position to hunt for methane, an indicator of potential biological activity.

«The atmospheric models aren't perfect, so we have to «feel» our way down to the start of aerobraking proper,» said Chris White, an ExoMars spacecraft operations engineer, in an ESA blog post describing the aerobraking procedures.

The aerobraking maneuvers come after thruster burns in January and February and tilted the angle of TGO's orbit from a path hugging the Martian equator to one circling at an angle of 74 degrees, permitting greater coverage of the planet.

The aerobraking campaign will take a two - month hiatus in July and August, when Mars is behind the sun as seen from Earth.

It is nearby and aerobraking has already been tested in its atmosphere by Venus Express.

The Trace Gas Orbiter has reached its final orbit after a year of «aerobraking» that ended in February.This exciting operation saw the craft skimming through the very top of the upper atmosphere, using drag on its solar wings to transform its initial highly elliptical four - day orbit of about 200 x 98 000 km into the final, much lower and near - circular path at about 400 km.