I suspect your friend has much better reflexes than I do. I've never been able to launch with a better than 68% power (and, really, you don't want to know how many times I've failed to even clear the warp circle). Apparently my accuracy on the angle is much better, sometimes getting within +/- 3 of the optimal 45 degrees - but that doesn't seem to be enough to get the momentum for the flight time.
I tried again, and got all unlocks at green, but just never managed to get both accuracy and power close enough to optimal to get enough burn to reach the anomaly.