Trans lunar trajectory, does it use gravitation fore or motor?

Question

how does a shuttle travel 386000 Km's on Trans lunar trajectory, does it use gravitation force or some motor power.
what is the technology or technic used to travel such far distances

Answer 1

There are 2 ways to do it both ways use a rocket motor.

Method 1 uses a lot of fuel, one time, to get the spacecraft into a translunar trajectory. The spacecraft starts in low-earth orbit and fires the rocket at precisely the right time to gain speed and so the direction will be toward the moon (where the moon *will be* in its orbit by the time the spacecraft gets there).

Method 2 uses very little fuel, but it takes several weeks to get to the moon. The spacecraft is placed in a highly eliptical orbit, and every time it hits perigee fires a short burst through the rocket motor. The ellipse gets bigger and bigger (still orbiting the earth). After a few weeks of this the apogee of the orbit exceeds the earth-moon L1 point (equal gravity between them), and the spacecraft is free to orbit the moon.

This method has been used sucessfully to re-orient the geosynchronous orbits of some comm. satellites.

Method 2 is not recommended for human space flight due to multiple exposures to the Van Allen belts and the requirements for weeks worth of food, water, oxygen, etc.

Also... like some above have said... it wouldn't work for the Shuttle because the shuttle wasn't designed for translunar injection. It would need some serious re-design to even attempt to go to the moon.
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Answer 2

The shuttle doesn't go on a translunar trajectory at all. It is incapable of doing so. A simple rocket engine will do the trick, however. In the case of the Apollo missions a single engine burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and generating 200,000lb of thrust was used to accelerate the spacecraft to 25,000mph, Earth's escape velocity. It burned for about five minutes. Once the spacecraft gets to 25,000mph it is travelling fast enough that it will coast far enough out to get caught by the Moon's gravity and pulled the rest of the way to the Moon.

Answer 3

Um... the shuttle never leaves Earth's orbit.

Answer 4

the shuttle has never gone to the moon.