Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Hey... you're right

re: Hey... you're right

The spacecraft shown in 2001 and 2010 were nuclear powered, so it's possible they'd need to get rid of more than ~8.8 km/sec upon arrival at Jupiter. One of the advantages of having nuclear engines is that you can have enough energy to go faster instead of having to do a minimum energy Hoffman transfer. If that's the case, then perhaps there would still be an advantage to aerobraking, then doing a burn to circularize the orbit. For example, you might need to get rid of say 12 km/sec at Jupiter using aerobraking.

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