IsraelZulu t1_iwheuk0 wrote
Reply to comment by Routine_Shine_1921 in How many different companies now have built a rocket and used it to deliver anything or people to space (besides government organizations like NASA and the Russian equivalent)? by Courcy6185
Any vehicle or payload that returns to Earth's surface, without completing at least one unpowered lap around it, is technically sub-orbital - right?
Personally, I think describing a vehicle or payload, or the flight thereof, in terms of "orbital" or "sub-orbital" is only really relevant if it reaches an altitude where an unpowered orbit is even possible to begin with. That would put the minimum height at around 150 km.
But, per Wikipedia at least, it seems the Kármán line (or a similar "border of space" that's relatively close to it) is the more commonly-accepted mark.
Routine_Shine_1921 t1_iwhn71g wrote
>Any vehicle or payload that returns to Earth's surface, without completing at least one unpowered lap around it, is technically sub-orbital - right?
Yup. Technically, if you throw a ball, it's a suborbital flight ;)
>Personally, I think describing a vehicle or payload, or the flight thereof, in terms of "orbital" or "sub-orbital" is only really relevant if it reaches an altitude where an unpowered orbit is even possible to begin with. That would put the minimum height at around 150 km.
Sure, but that would leave out a lot of important historic flights, for instance, all of the V-2 flights, both those performed by the Nazis and the early tests after the US acquired the technology.
>But, per Wikipedia at least, it seems the Kármán line (or a similar "border of space" that's relatively close to it) is the more commonly-accepted mark.
Yes, the kármán line defines "space", but that doesn't mean sub-orbital requires going to space. In any case, it's all just semantics :)
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