/sci/ - Science & Math

if you have something in a stable orbit around earth and you fire thrusters on it to push it further away from earth, does it:
speed up
slow down
eventually fall back into its stable orbit?

i'm asking because of this quote on imdb about the movie life (2017) and i dont understand:
>At one point the space stations orbit is degrading and the thrusters are fired to put it back into a stable orbit. To accomplish this the thrusters seem to fire down or towards the earth, this is incorrect, to gain altitude they would need to orbit faster so the thrust would be from the back accelerating them into a higher more stable orbit.