yo-yo despin

noun

Etymology

From the cables being wrapped around the spacecraft and unreeling in the manner of a double yo-yo.

Definitions

  1. A method of reducing the rotation rate of a rapidly-spinning spacecraft by unreeling a…

    A method of reducing the rotation rate of a rapidly-spinning spacecraft by unreeling a pair of weights from the spinning spacecraft, greatly increasing the spacecraft's moment of inertia and transferring most of the spacecraft's angular momentum to the weights.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for yo-yo despin. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA