gravity assist

American  

noun

1. the technique of using the energy of a gravitational field and the orbital velocity of a planet to change the speed and trajectory of a spacecraft.

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Example Sentences

This technique, known as a gravity assist, helped place Psyche on the correct path toward its ultimate destination, the metal-rich asteroid Psyche.

From Science Daily • May 23, 2026

It will get a gravity assist by sling-shotting around Mars early next year, then boomerang back around Earth in late 2026 before zooming toward the gas giant and its icy, dynamic moon.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 14, 2024

We’ll use a gravity assist from the moon and then the Earth to make the orbital capture.

From Slate • Aug. 5, 2023

Voyager 1 reached Jupiter in 1979 and used a gravity assist from that planet to take it on to Saturn in 1980.

From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016

This enabled the two Voyagers to use a "gravity assist" technique in which the craft were successively flung from one gassy giant to the next in a kind of cosmic version of "crack the whip."

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson