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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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.
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).