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Unless I'm mistaken, it's not on a trajectory out of Earth orbit currently. It is in a parking orbit, where it will sit for a few hours and then will reignite
by Klathmon 9y ago
Unless I'm mistaken, it's not on a trajectory out of Earth orbit currently.
It is in a parking orbit, where it will sit for a few hours and then will reignite and will be set on a trajectory toward "martian orbit".
IIRC currently they are testing (or proving depending on how confident they are) that they can have the second stage sit for several hours in space before reignighting.
- teraflop 9y agoI think you're correct. At stage 2 cutoff, they were showing a speed of ~26,000 km/h, which is approximately orbital velocity, not escape velocity.
- Klathmon 9y agoAlthough I'm not fully correct. Mr. Musk just tweeted this: >Upper stage restart nominal, apogee raised to 7000 km. Will spend 5 hours getting zapped in Van Allen belts & then attempt final burn for Mars. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960988527159795712 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960988527159795712