The Great Courses - The Science of Flight

To Mars and Beyond: Gravity-Assist Flight (1x22)

Air date: May 23, 2017

Venture beyond Earth to the realm of the planets. Interplanetary trajectories require exquisite timing so that the target planet is in exactly the right spot when the spacecraft arrives, often by a Hohmann transfer ellipse. Consider two fuel-saving approaches to these marathon journeys—gravity assists and ion propulsion.