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The SCAs were used to ferry Space Shuttles from landing sites back to the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. The orbiters were placed on top of the SCAs by Mate-Demate Devices, large gantry-like structures that hoisted the orbiters off the ground for post-flight servicing then mated them with the SCAs for ferry flights.
Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ferry flights generally originated at Edwards Air Force Base in California or on one occasion White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico following missions which landed there, especially in the early days of the Space Shuttle program or when weather at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at Kennedy Space Center prevented ...
An F/A-18 taking off from an aircraft carrier An Embraer E175 taking off. Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle leaves the ground and becomes airborne. For aircraft traveling vertically, this is known as liftoff. For aircraft that take off horizontally, this usually involves starting with a transition from moving along ...
The shuttle program was marked by triumphs and failures, including the 2003 Columbia disaster. The tragedies left a lasting mark on the perception of risks in space.
The Space Shuttle external tank (ET) carried the propellant for the Space Shuttle Main Engines, and connected the orbiter vehicle with the solid rocket boosters. The ET was 47 m (153.8 ft) tall and 8.4 m (27.6 ft) in diameter, and contained separate tanks for liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
The term “space plane” often evokes NASA’s Space Shuttle, which flew 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, carrying astronauts into orbit and helping to construct the International Space Station.
The longest orbital flight of the Shuttle was STS-80 at 17 days 15 hours, while the shortest flight was STS-51-L at one minute 13 seconds when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart during launch. The cold morning shrunk an O-Ring on the right Solid Rocket Booster causing the external fuel tank to explode.
The positioning had to be precise. The shuttle's nose was raised 200 feet into the night sky so that the rudder could clear 80 feet of space. Endeavour was then turned 17 degrees clockwise to ...