alt Hacker NewsThe craft has aerodynamics and speed. It might be figuratively true "unrecoverable" but if it takes e.g. 2 weeks to complete a return, their oxygen and food and batteries ran out. Alternatively if it enters too fast they return ... in pieces.
I think you're being a pedant, if your point is a grazing entry causing rebound skip ultimately returns to some orbital path downward.
You seem to intentionally be ignoring the original quote that any error may have caused them to be flung into space. This is patently false unless the one math error is pumping in hundreds of pounds more propellant and burning far longer than the scheduled burns. NASA would need to make a significant series of mistakes beyond orbital math for the "flung out into space" statement to be true.
They certainly could've gotten the return wrong but with a perigee of 119 miles they arent even in a stable orbit and likely could deorbit themselves using only rcs thrusters at apogee, or by just waiting a few orbits.