Ben HoustonThe 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
James Jefferies@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…
embix@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.