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A comment on Starship's Fourth Flight Test: Window Opens 07:00 AM Central Time. Parent comment

Re:Starship's Fourth Flight Test: Window Opens 07:00 AM Cent... by sbuttgereit on Thursday June 06, 2024 @05:07PM (#40602427)
> All I see is a video from after IFT-3 that parrots SpaceX's post-hoc rationalization about the fact that their craft could not reach orbital velocity.

Given that the video was posted 4 days prior to that test, it is downright prescient that they are parroting a post-hoc rationalization.

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Re:Starship's Fourth Flight Test: Window Opens 07:00 AM Cent... by pclmulqdq on Thursday June 06, 2024 @06:46PM (#40603275)
Just watched it, I had my dates mixed up. The trajectory this guy drew on the map does not involve starship reaching orbital velocity anywhere on it, which is inconsistent with SpaceX's publications. SpaceX's claim was that IFT3 would enter an orbit and then leave it, not that it would follow a ballistic trajectory to the indian ocean.

It's possible that SpaceX made the mistake of using the words "orbital velocity" and this YouTuber is right, though.

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Re:Starship's Fourth Flight Test: Window Opens 07:00 AM Cent... by Manabu-eo on Thursday June 06, 2024 @08:12PM (#40603972)
> SpaceX's claim was that IFT3 would enter an orbit

You are claiming that, SpaceX never claimed that, only "orbital velocity". They wanted to test if the Starship is capable of reaching orbit, but w/o entering orbit for safety reasons. For that they wanted to achieve "orbital velocity" but of course not in an "orbital trajectory".

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