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In 2021, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic began carrying paying passengers on brief trips just past the edge of space before falling back to Earth.

What is the term for a flight that reaches space but does not circle the planet?

Suborbital flight
A suborbital flight crosses into space but lacks the speed to stay in orbit, so it arcs up and comes straight back down. These hops offer only a few minutes of weightlessness, unlike orbital missions that lap the Earth again and again.

A suborbital flight briefly crosses the boundary of space but doesn't reach the speed needed to stay in orbit, so instead of circling the planet it arcs upward and falls back down along essentially the same path, giving passengers just a few minutes of weightlessness at the top of the arc.

An orbital flight, by contrast, reaches enough speed to keep circling the Earth indefinitely rather than falling straight back, which is what missions to the International Space Station require. An interplanetary flight goes even further, traveling between planets entirely, far beyond what a brief edge-of-space hop involves.

Blue Origin's New Shepard and Virgin Galactic's spaceplane both use suborbital paths specifically because they require vastly less fuel and speed than reaching orbit, which is what has made paid tourist trips to the edge of space commercially feasible at all.

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