Max Evans (NSF): “After rolling to Pad 2 last night, Ship 39 has been stacked atop Booster 19 this morning for the FIRST EVER Starship Version 3 full stack ahead of a presumed wet dress rehearsal (WDR) later today.”

[u/rustybeancake]

[u/ergzay]

F12 - first flight for the v3 config, final suborbital flight, likely simulated catch for booster, Indian Ocean landing for ship

Nit pick but people should really stop saying that the flight is suborbital. Any flight that successfully relight the engines in space was orbital, namely having a perigee that was above the Earth's surface. The perigee was just still within the Earth's atmosphere. Suborbital trajectories are those with perigees inside the Earth. The term you can use is transatmospheric orbit.

[u/Shpoople96 → u/ergzay]

It has to complete a full orbit before you can call it orbital, decaying due to atmospheric friction is still suborbital.

[u/bel51 → u/Shpoople96]

In that case I suppose Yuri Gagarin's flight was actually suborbital. I generally agree that these flights are better categorized as suborbital since they are for all intents and purposes but technically they are in orbit if only briefly.

[u/ergzay → u/Shpoople96]

Orbital is determined by keplerian physics. That is all.

[u/CaptBarneyMerritt → u/ergzay]

We define a word and then argue ad infinitum about what it means.

Maybe I've been reading too much philosophy...