Word: retrorocket
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1958-1958
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bring the satellite back to earth at a desired place and time, designers expect to employ a retrorocket, which will be fired to reduce its speed at the chosen moment and spot. A parachute will slow it further, and a radio will shout an S O S. Finding the satellite with its undeveloped films or its beat-up "primate" should not be much harder than finding a missile's nose cone...
...journey a scanning device will pick up the moon's sunlit face, fix its position, and an artificial brain will figure out what to do next. It can light a small steering rocket to correct the course. If a landing on the moon is scheduled, a backward-acting retrorocket can be fired to reduce speed and impact. A different use of the two control rockets will make the vehicle orbit around the moon to report the scenery on its unknown far side...
...Raborn, "as the comb in your pocket"). Even so, solids presented a big problem: how to cut off burning with the split-second precision necessary if the missile is to land on target. (Liquid oxygen can be shut off mechanically with a valve.) The solution: a design called a retrorocket that automatically blasts portholes in the fuel chamber, drops the pressure, effectively cuts off the power...