Starship's Third Flight Test

Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by dotnet00 on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:36AM (#39704583)

Technically it's a transatmospheric orbit. That is, an orbit such that it'd stay up there if the atmosphere were not present. The difference between this and full orbit is just a few seconds longer burn, so it's a difference with little meaning in terms of proving out the ability to reach orbit.

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Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by perihelions on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:49AM (#39704765)

I don't believe that's the case—see the math in my sibling comment.

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Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by dotnet00 on Thursday March 14, 2024 @11:06AM (#39704968)

The number going around from people who typically do this kind of thing is a ~55x235km orbit: https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1768270310199935299

I'm not really in a place to judge your math right now to really add anything on that.

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Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by perihelions on Thursday March 14, 2024 @11:21AM (#39705163)

Yeah, that guy's absolutely a domain expert! But note that he writes -55 km, not +55 km—that is a suborbital trajectory. Its perigee is below the earth's surface; -55 km is a negative altitude.

(He's also clearly using a different set of data than I have access to. I can't read the context of the Twitter thread so I don't know what numbers he's looking at).

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Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by dotnet00 on Thursday March 14, 2024 @11:28AM (#39705262)

Ooh that's a good catch, I subconsciously substituted the -55 for ~55!

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