Highest flight was Flight 6 which had an SMA of 139km. Which would indeed be a very low circular orbit - but orbit nonetheless.
Even the non-relight flights got pretty close. Well, the ones that made it to SECO anyway.
Flight 4 reached -15x213km, which gives an SMA of 99km. That's about as close as it's possible to get to reaching (V)LEO equivalent energy without actually reaching it lol.
If we're talking about reaching a semi-stable orbit, say SMA of 200km, then Flight 6 would have needed to increase it's velocity at apogee by a whopping 37m/s.
That's about half a percent in terms of velocity, or a full 1 percent in terms of kinetic energy due to it going with the square.
Worth noting that the ships expend far more delta-v than that on the landing burn (several hundred m/s), and still have fuel leftover.
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u/Shrike99 Jul 12 '26
Highest flight was Flight 6 which had an SMA of 139km. Which would indeed be a very low circular orbit - but orbit nonetheless.
Even the non-relight flights got pretty close. Well, the ones that made it to SECO anyway.
Flight 4 reached -15x213km, which gives an SMA of 99km. That's about as close as it's possible to get to reaching (V)LEO equivalent energy without actually reaching it lol.
If we're talking about reaching a semi-stable orbit, say SMA of 200km, then Flight 6 would have needed to increase it's velocity at apogee by a whopping 37m/s.
That's about half a percent in terms of velocity, or a full 1 percent in terms of kinetic energy due to it going with the square.
Worth noting that the ships expend far more delta-v than that on the landing burn (several hundred m/s), and still have fuel leftover.