Kinematics effects of atmospheric friction in spacecraft flybys

Gravity assist manoeuvres are one of the most successful techniques in astrodynamics. In these trajectories the spacecraft comes very close to the surface of the Earth, or other Solar system planets or moons, and, as a consequence, it experiences the effect of atmospheric friction by the outer layers of the Earth's atmosphere or ionosphere. In this paper we analyze a standard atmospheric model to estimate the density profile during the two Galileo flybys, the NEAR and the Juno flyby. We show that, even allowing for a margin of uncertainty in the spacecraft cross-section and the drag coefficient, the observed -8 mm/s anomalous velocity decrease during the second Galileo flyby of December 8th 1992 cannot be attributed only to atmospheric friction. On the other hand, for perigees on the border between the thermosphere and the exosphere the friction only accounts for a fraction of a millimeter per second in the final asymptotic velocity.