1. aerocapture - Noun
2. aerocapture - Verb
aerocapture (countable and uncountable, plural aerocaptures)
(astronautics) A form of aerobraking in which a spacecraft uses atmospheric drag to decelerate from a hyperbolic trajectory into a closed orbit, eliminating the need for a large orbital-insertion burn and requiring only small correction burns to raise the spacecraft's periapsis out of the atmosphere.
aerocapture (third-person singular simple present aerocaptures, present participle aerocapturing, simple past and past participle aerocaptured)
(intransitive) To perform (an) aerocapture.