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Aerobraking has been used extensively over the decades by spacecraft orbiting Earth as a means to remove their orbital velocity and return to the surface. This removes a large amount of kinetic energy over a short period of time, most of which is converted into heat by shock heating the air ahead of the spacecraft. Spacecraft require a sturdy heat shield to survive the maneuver, as well as an aerodynamic shape and good resistance to acceleration. Aerobraking has also been employed in a similar manner by landers sent to Mars, Venus, and Jupiter.
Aerobraking can also be used in a less extreme manner, to adjust the velocity of a spacecraft without permanently reentering the atmosphere. For example, the Mars Global SurveyorThe launch of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft in November 1996 by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory began America's return to Mars after a 20-year absence. The Surveyor spacecraft, fabricated at the Lockheed Martin Astronautics plant in Den Mars orbiter used its solar panels as " wingFor some other uses of the word "wing" please see Wing (disambiguation . Laughing Gull on the beach in Atlantic City. Birds' bones are hollow, to cut down on weight and allow flight A wing is a surface used to produce an aerodynamic force normal to the dis" to control its passage through the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars to lower the apoapsis of its orbit over the course of many months. This sort of aerobraking does not result in as extreme temperatures or pressures, and so does not require as many design considerations.
A further alternative approach to aerobraking and reentry is discussed in the reentry article.