Hi Rob, > Could someone clarify something which ahs been bothering me for > years about this gravity assist technique? Why does the spacecraft > come out of the gravity well going faster than it went in without > thrust?
The trick is that you have to keep track of your reference frames. You are quite correct that the ~speed~ relative to Jupiter will be the same pre-encounter and post-encounter (though not the direction), but Jupiter is not stationary w.r.t. the sun, and as a consequence the velocity of the spacecraft relative to the sun can change quite a bit -- up to twice the orbital speed of Jupiter in this case. (Jupiter's orbital speed is > 13 km/sec). --Rob ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
