orbital flight
Looping the planet
Orbital flight is spaceflight where a craft achieves sufficient speed and altitude to continuously circle Earth (or another celestial body) rather than falling back down.
The vehicle is technically in free fall, but moving fast enough sideways that it keeps missing the ground.
Distinguished from suborbital flight, which reaches space but returns without completing an orbit: The first orbital flight carried Yuri Gagarin around Earth in 1961.
- spacecraftVehicle for outer space
- rocketPropulsion-driven spacecraft
- lift offDeparture from ground
- astronautSpacecraft crew member
- capsuleEnclosed dose container
launch · satellite · weightlessness · heat shield · mission · cosmonaut · astronaut training · mission control · trajectory · thrust · escape velocity · boosters · countdown · atmosphere · docking · module · velocity · apogee
- space explorationrockets, Saturn V, satellites, mission, Falcon Heavy
- spaceflightlaunch, astronaut, spacecraft, liftoff, countdown
- space fictionscience fiction, spaceship, sci-fi, astronaut, space adventure
- astronautsastronaut, cosmonaut, taikonaut, cosmonauts, spaceman
- Aviation milestonesWright brothers, sound barrier, Concorde, SR-71, jet engine
- weightlessnesszero gravity, zero-g, microgravity, weightless, weightlessness