Tracy Drain

Actually, the thing that gets us all the way out to Jupiter is more about the rocket that we use to launch off of the Earth and get out of the gravity well.

So we had the spacecraft flying.

fold up its wings and sit on the top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle.

And that gets you going fast enough, but not actually enough to get all the way there.

So we had to play the game of solar system billiards where we went out and did a flyby of Mars to pick up a bit of velocity.

And then we're actually coming back by the Earth on December 3rd of this year to get another gravity assist to give us our final kick to get going far enough out to.

So think of it this way.

Here we are at the Earth, and Mars is also going in its orbit around the sun.

You just have to go close enough to Mars, like graze its sphere of influence from a gravitational perspective.

And so it's almost like as you get closer, gravity acts stronger.

So it's almost like you're holding hands with the planet, and it's going so fast that it slings you, and then you get a bit faster.

Right.

And so that makes our orbit bigger.

So we're in a bigger circular orbit, but then – not circular, elliptical – but then you come back by the Earth if you time it right.

And you play the game with calculus and physics to know where the planets are going to be.

So our orbit is –

Kind of in a little elliptical orbit, and then we went by Mars.

It puts us in a slightly different elliptical orbit, and then you head by the Earth, and that gets us in an even bigger one so that the end gets you all the way out to Jupiter.

Sorry, your audience cannot see what I'm doing.

That's exactly right.