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Haha... the point I was trying to make is that flipping a spacecraft in a vacuum is easy as there are very few external forces involved.

Flipping a craft while hurtling toward the earth at some large velocity through an atmosphere which generates friction with very few control surfaces is not.



You can definitely do a deorbit burn and then flip around using thrusters before aerodynamics kick in. The Space Shuttle did it all the time.


Nowhere in the video do they show any drogue or drag chutes but I would assume they enter into the picture as well, and would be involved in the mid-altitude slowing and flip of the second stage.




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