What is this launch supposed to do? Launch and land or launch and orbit?
this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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Launch ship to "near-orbit", booster performs a soft "landing" in the Atlantic, ship performs a hard splashdown in the Pacific.
In the very unlikely event that the Starship makes it to a nominal trajectory and survives re-entry, will it be attempting the flip-and-burn manoeuvre in the Pacific? Or are we talking a true hard splashdown/bellyflop?
If it gets that far then I'd imagine that it would attempt to flip. Although I do think I recall something said about not doing a flip to ensure that there's nothing that needs to be recovered. This would mean they don't need recovery ships in the area.
The flight profile here https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2 does not say there will be a flip. But concludes with "Excitement Guaranteed". So anything could happen.