Nice analysis. I can answer your question by illuminating two major points you missed. 1. The StarShip reaches a terminal velocity (in "the bellyflop") of abou

Nice analysis. I can answer your question by illuminating two major points you missed. 1. The StarShip reaches a terminal velocity (in "the bellyflop") of about 200 km/h downwards and remains at that velocity until the "flip maneuver" at the end. That's essentially a free force vector upwards due to drag which is free thrust on descent. 2. The weight of fuel reduces drastically on ascent which is why less engines are required as the StarShip soars higher into the air (they shut down when one reaches the 40% min thrust) You'll see during the hover at the top that StarShip balanced on one engine for some time without moving. So that is the thrust required for station keeping. What we saw here was a combination of reaching a target location and burning excess fuel. --- So, landing burn is (supposed to be) done with two fully throttled raptors, which is essentially 4x the hover thrust. Here with SN9 you see what happens when only one of those raptors is actually working. Here is an Excellent SN8 (not SN9) video with carefully reconstructed telemetry (based on pixel counting video references) and you can see the velocities on descent. Rewind the video for full detail: https://youtu.be/XJZ7VWzqtJM?t=867 https://youtu.be/XJZ7VWzqtJM?t=867 [How to simulate a Starship launch!]