swingby
/ˈswɪŋˌbaɪ/
noun
- A brief visit or stop, especially one made while traveling past a place.
- The astronaut's swingby of the space station lasted only a few hours.
- A swingby to the post office saved us a separate trip.
- We made a quick swingby at the grocery store on the way home.
- In space travel, the use of a planet's gravity to change a spacecraft's trajectory and speed.
- A gravity swingby can save a lot of fuel on long missions.
- The probe used a swingby of Jupiter to gain speed for its journey to Saturn.
- The mission plan included a swingby of Venus to adjust the spacecraft's path.