Shouldn’t the gravity of the planet force the craft to expend fuel to escape the gravity?
In: 1
It’s because the ship is in a constant fall the entire time and doesn’t get slowed down. The ship never has a path that leads to or away from the actual surface of the planet and as such never has to “loose” any velocity escaping the gravity. Any orbit is a constant fall and a spacecraft has initial velocity that allows it to make an orbit so big and lopsided that it’s more of a slingshot than an orbit
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