Suborbital Flight "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

• Virgin Group founder Richard Branson became the first billionaire to fly to the edge of space and back, riding aboard his own Virgin Galactic spacecraft in a suborbital flight.

 

 

What is Suborbital Flight?

• 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.
• The satellites need to reach that threshold speed in order to do orbit Earth and such a satellite would be accelerating towards the Earth due to gravity.
• Any object travelling slower than 28,000 km/hr must eventually return to Earth.
• It allows space travellers to experience a few minutes of “weightlessness”.
• It implies that while the suborbital vehicles will cross the ill-defined boundary of space, they will not be going fast enough to stay in space once they get there.

 

Difference between Orbital and Suborbital Flights

• The main difference between orbital and suborbital flight is the speed at which a vehicle is traveling.
• An orbital spacecraft must achieve what is known as orbital velocity, whereas a suborbital rocket flies at a speed below that.
• The orbital velocity is the speed that an object must maintain to remain in orbit around a planet.
• A suborbital rocket does not have the power to achieve orbit and it will fly up to a certain height that depends on its speed, and then come back down once its engines are shut off.

 

Potential Opportunities offered by Suborbital Flights

• It would provide increased flight access for design innovation and experimental manipulation due to high projected flight rates.
• It would also allow for human-tended experiments, much like the traditional zero-g aircraft, with rapid access to these payloads before, during, and after launch.
• It would be the potential for less bureaucracy than is typically experienced with government space access.
• The access to commercial suborbital spaceflight has the potential to open up a new realm in research and development.

 

Safety concerns

• The Branson flight comes seven years after his company’s first rocket, called Enterprise, crashed during a test flight, killing one of the pilots on board.
• The other survived after parachuting out.
• The current rocket is also not certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which is prohibited to do so by law until 2023.
• This is because the US government does not want to burden companies like Virgin Atlantic with regulations during their “learning” period, when they can innovate by trying out different designs and procedures.
• Passengers who go on such trips need to sign “informed consent” forms, similar to the ones before going for skydiving or bungee jumping.