The flight of NASA's Artemis (purple) uses two very close encounters with the moon's gravity (green) to changes its trajectory to get back to the earth (blue.) Amazing.

More details: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1

#astronomy #nasa #space

Artemis-I

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@BenHouston3D looks like it is going incredibly fast when it smashes back into the earth!
@jamesjefferies Interesting, you are correct, according to the speed in the bottom left, it will be doing 10km/s when it comes back to earth. Maybe it does another gravity type encounter, this time with earth, that kills its forward speed? Probably information on this somewhere online…
@BenHouston3D @jamesjefferies
Re-entry speed is 24,500 mph in old money, which equates to 10.9 km per second.

Link: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-i/
NASA: Artemis II

Artemis I will be the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to build a sustained human presence at the Moon for decades to come.

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@BenHouston3D @jamesjefferies

Similar re-entry speed to Apollo and about 1.5x re-entry speed of a shuttle. I wouldn't fancy it myself. Strictly ground crew!

@BenHouston3D @jamesjefferies The atmosphere will gradually slow it down. Apollo missions had similar reentry speeds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_entry#Real_(equilibrium)_gas_model
Atmospheric entry - Wikipedia

@BenHouston3D @jamesjefferies Not sure they are doing that but aerobreaking seems an option to decrease apogee. A quick dive into the thinnest upper atmosphere can save a lot of delta v. And if time is no issue, you can repeat this as much as needed to decrease speed for safe (final) reentry.