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Science & Tech.
Pradeep Kumar

12/07/21 13:20 PM IST

Suborbital flight

In news

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and five others undertook a brief trip to the “edge of space”, taking off on the VSS Unity spaceship from New Mexico and reaching an altitude of 85 km from Earth before returning.

Suborbital
  • When an object travels at a horizontal speed of about 28,000 km/hr or more, it goes into orbit once it is above the atmosphere.
  • Satellites need to reach that threshold speed in order to do orbit Earth.
  • Such a satellite would accelerating toward the Earth due to gravity.
  • However, it moves fast enough that the Earth curves out from under it as fast as it falls, giving it a circular path, the Virginia Commonwealth University explains on its website.
  • Any object travelling slower than 28,000 km/hr must eventually return to Earth. However, Branson’s spacecraft travelled fast enough, as Bezos’s will, to reach a point far enough to be considered outer space.
  • These are suborbital flights, because they will not be traveling fast enough to orbit Earth once they reach the “edge of space”.
  • Such a trip allows space travellers to experience a few minutes of “weightlessness”.
Source: Indian Express

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