Reentry
Reentry or re-entry is the return to Earth from space. By extension the term is used to refer to the transition from the vacuum of space to the atmosphere of any planet or other celestial body, even if not entering again. The term is not used for landing on e.g. the Moon, which has no atmosphere. For manned missions reentry has until now only applied to returning to Earth.Reentry often occurs at high speed and takes advantage of aerobraking (using wind resistance and a heat shield to slow the vehicle) and is a critical time for the spacecraft. Any errors in this portion of the flight profile are difficult to recover from and will probably have large impact upon the mission. Death and/or mission failures have occurred in this flight regime.
The highest velocity reentry so far was achieved by the Jupiter atmosphere probe aboard the Galileo spacecraft, which reached 170,700 km per hour and a temperature of 14,000 °C.
Notable reentry mishaps occurred during the following missions:
- Soyuz 5 - service module failed to detach, but crew survived
- Soyuz 11 - crew perished due to early depressurization
- Space Shuttle Columbia disaster