If you were in a spacecraft moving at 1000 miles/hour in outer space and you turned off the engines, what would happen to the speed and direction of your spacecraft & why?

Question

If you were in a spacecraft moving at 1000 miles/hour in outer space and you turned off the engines, what would happen to the speed and direction of your spacecraft & why?

In: 13

Answer 1

To reach a circular orbit, spacecraft must accelerate to more than 7.8 meters per second horizontally.

So, compared to Earth, if your spacecraft travels at only 1,000 miles per hour when its engine cuts out, momentum will carry it along its ballistic trajectory, past the apex, thence a terminal arc until ground impact.