Hohmann transfer

English

Etymology

Named after Walter Hohmann, the German engineer who described it.

Noun

Hohmann transfer (plural Hohmann transfers)

  1. (astronautics) An elliptical orbit used to transfer a spacecraft between two circular orbits of different altitudes in the same plane, with the periapsis of the orbit being tangent to the smaller circular orbit and its apoapsis being tangent to the larger circular orbit.
  2. (astronautics) The process of using such an orbit to transfer between two other orbits.

Coordinate terms
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.