| 释义 |
ˈretro-rocket
[f. retro- + rocket n.3]
†a. (See quot.) Obs.
1948W. Ley Rockets & Space Travel 347 Retro-rocket, anti-submarine weapon fired from planes backward with velocity matching plane speed so that the weapon fell vertically... Retro-rockets sank the last ‘probable’ German submarine in the war, on April 30, 1945.
b. Astronautics. An auxiliary rocket on a spacecraft that points in the forward direction, so as to provide thrust opposing forward motion when fired.
1957Times 9 Nov. 6/6 To bring the satellite safely down from its orbit would require the use of what he called ‘retro-rockets’ to slow its speed. 1958New Statesman 18 Oct. 512/1 It consisted of a three-stage rocket, plus a retro⁓rocket... The third stage was intended to circle the moon..but it had attached a fourth stage—the retro-rocket—designed to discharge in the opposite direction and thus act as a brake. 1962J. Glenn in Into Orbit 37 The engineers worked out three different ways of firing the small retro⁓rockets which would start us back towards the earth. 1963Guardian 8 Apr. 1/3 It [sc. Lunik 4] will use retro-rockets to effect a soft landing on the lunar surface. 1974Encycl. Brit. Macropædia XVII. 359/2 In the case of a spacecraft whose mission is to land softly on the Moon, on approach trajectory the attitude-control subsystem will rotate the spacecraft so that its retrorocket and landing radar are pointed toward the lunar surface. |