Skip reentry

Have you ever played catch with a ball or a frisbee? Imagine you throw the ball really hard and it goes really high up in the sky. Now, imagine you throw it so hard and so high that it leaves the Earth's atmosphere and goes into space.

Now, let's say you want to bring the ball back down to Earth. You could just let it fall down by itself, but it might burn up because of the heat caused by friction with the air as it falls back into the atmosphere. That's where skip reentry comes in!

Skip reentry is a way to safely bring objects, like spacecraft, back to Earth without burning up. It's called "skip" reentry because the spacecraft actually bounces off the Earth's atmosphere a few times before coming all the way back down.

Here's how it works: When the spacecraft is coming back to Earth, it enters the atmosphere at a very shallow angle. That means it's not going straight down, but almost sideways. This shallow angle helps the spacecraft skip off the atmosphere like a skipping stone on water.

The first time the spacecraft skips off the atmosphere, it loses a lot of its speed and heat. Then it goes back up into space again before coming down and skipping off the atmosphere a second time. Each time it skips off the atmosphere, it loses more speed and heat.

Finally, after several skips, the spacecraft slows down enough that it can safely enter the atmosphere without burning up. It then parachutes down to the ground.

So you see, skip reentry is like playing catch with a ball. But instead of just letting the ball fall, you throw it really hard and it bounces off the surrounding air before gently floating down to the ground.