4 ms·
There was no stable orbit, the ship was suborbital during the entire flight (as planned).
by echoangle 1y ago
There was no stable orbit, the ship was suborbital during the entire flight (as planned).
- decimalenough 1y agoReally? Wikipedia says they "made it to orbital velocity", and I thought their original plan was to do a full orbit of the Earth before reentry.
- none_to_remain 1y agoOrbital velocity but not orbital trajectory.
- pfdietz 1y agoVelocity is a vector, so it would be more proper to say "orbital speed". But no one does that.
- BobaFloutist 1y agoVectors are location independent, so theoretically any velocity with sufficiently high speed would be orbital velocity even if it was pointed directly at the planet, no?
- BobaFloutist 1y agoFor that matter, any velocity is orbital velocity, since at sufficient distance it would exactly perfectly counteract earth's gravitational field. Assuming there aren't any other gravitational fields out there to interfere.
- aeternum 1y agoThis flight's failure is a great example of why doing a full orbit is a bad idea. It's quite close to orbital velocity but keeping it just short ensures it will re-enter in the predicted zone even if they lose control (as they did today).
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]