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Aceticon t1_jcetnwd wrote

Reply to comment by CarbonIceDragon in Virgin Orbit pauses operations for a week, furloughs nearly entire staff as it seeks funding by Realistic-Cap6526

Making it to orbital height briefly is not making to orbit, it's just a balistic trajectory that happens to have a high enough apogee.

It takes more energy (possibly much more) than that to actually "make it to orbit" a state which amongst other things has the noteable characteristic that things don't just fall down from it immediatelly after reaching it (they can, over time, end up falling down from lower orbits were there is drag from the top of Earths athmosphere, but when things just go up and the fall back down again they haven't made it to orbit)

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CarbonIceDragon t1_jcg4gv1 wrote

I'm aware of that, but didn't their rocket's second flight make an actual orbit, just one so low that the satellites ended up deorbiting in the next few days? Or have I been misinformed about this?

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Xeglor-The-Destroyer t1_jchfrf9 wrote

No you're correct. They did make orbit on their most recent launch, just lower than the intended one.

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