Boost-glide

Common card · No. 386861

Boost-glide, or skip-glide, is a class of atmospheric entry trajectories that follow a non-ballistic trajectory by employing aerodynamic lift in the high upper atmosphere. The term is mostly used to refer to a number of designs that used lift to extend the range of an otherwise shorter-ranged rocket. Skip is a flight trajectory where the spacecraft goes in and out the atmosphere. Glide is a flight trajectory where the spacecraft stays in the atmosphere for a sustained flight period of time. In most examples, a skip reentry roughly doubles the range of suborbital spaceplanes and reentry vehicles over the purely ballistic trajectory. In others, a series of skips allows the range to be further extended. Boost-glide entry was first seriously studied as a way to extend the range of ballistic missiles, but was not used operationally in this form as conventional missiles with extended range were introduced. The underlying aerodynamic concepts have been used to produce maneuverable reentry vehicles...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Clem Tillier; Earth graphic based on NASA image of Earth seen from Apollo 17., CC BY-SA 2.5