An elliptical orbit that carries a spacecraft from one circular orbit to a different circular orbit when both orbits lie in the same plane. In transferring from a low orbit to a higher one, the spacecraft engines fire to accelerate the craft into an elliptical orbit that intersects the higher orbit. The spacecraft travels through half the ellipse. As it arrives at the higher orbit, the engines fire again to accelerate it into the higher orbit. The same manoeuvre can also be used in reverse to bring a spacecraft into a lower orbit. In practice, the two orbits may not be perfectly circular and therefore are not coplanar, in which case the transfer orbit is slightly less than 180°, when it is known as a Type I Hohmann transfer, or slightly more than 180°, when it is known as a Type II Hohmann transfer. The manoeuvre was devised by the German engineer Walter Hohmann (1880–1945).