Word.ws English Dictionary

gravitational assist

gravitational assist is the alternative form of gravity assist.

Meaning of gravity assist

Noun

gravity assist (plural gravity assists)

  1. The favorable alteration of the speed and trajectory of a spacecraft as a result of its passing near to a celestial body.
    • After going into orbit around Jupiter with a gravity assist from the volcanic moon Io, Galileo will spend 22 months studying the planet.1989 October 10, Warren E. Leary, “Galileo's Itinerary”, in New York Times, retrieved 04 Sep 2011

Forms of gravitational assist

pluralgravitational assists

Questions about gravitational assist

What is gravitational assist the alternative form of?
Gravitational assist is the alternative form of gravity assist.

Words near gravitational assist in the dictionary

  1. gravitated
  2. gravitates
  3. gravitating
  4. gravitation
  5. gravitational
  6. gravitational assist
  7. gravitational assists
  8. gravitational collapse
  9. gravitational collapses
  10. gravitational constant
  11. gravitational constants

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gravitational assist (page history and authors); gravity assist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “gravitational assist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gravitational_assist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.