Encyclopedia > Re-entry

  Article Content

Re-entry

Reentry is the term used to refer to the transition from the vacuum of space to the atmosphere of a planet or other celestial body. This often occurs at high speed to take advantage of aerobraking (using wind resistance to slow the vehicle) and is a critical time for the spacecraft. Any errors in this portion of the flight profile are difficult to recover from and will probably have large impact upon the mission. Death and/or mission failures have occurred in this flight regime.

See also: Space Shuttle Columbia disaster



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Springs, New York

... 100 females there are 102.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 100.8 males. The median income for a household in the town is $57,038, and the median ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 22.3 ms