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Early reentry-vehicle concepts visualized in shadowgraphs of high speed wind tunnel tests. The concept of the ablative heat shield was described as early as 1920 by Robert Goddard: "In the case of meteors, which enter the atmosphere with speeds as high as 30 miles (48 km) per second, the interior of the meteors remains cold, and the erosion is due, to a large extent, to chipping or cracking of ...
A reentry capsule is the portion of a space capsule which returns to Earth following a spaceflight. The shape is determined partly by aerodynamics ; a capsule is aerodynamically stable falling blunt end first, which allows only the blunt end to require a heat shield for atmospheric entry .
The concept has also been used to extend the reentry time for vehicles returning to Earth from the Moon, which would otherwise have to shed a large amount of velocity in a short time and thereby suffer very high heating rates. The Apollo Command Module also used what is essentially a skip re-entry, as did the Soviet Zond and Chinese Chang'e 5-T1.
The satellite designs also required that the Space Shuttle have a 4.6 by 18 m (15 by 60 ft) payload bay. NASA evaluated the F-1 and J-2 engines from the Saturn rockets, and determined that they were insufficient for the requirements of the Space Shuttle; in July 1971, it issued a contract to Rocketdyne to begin development on the RS-25 engine.
Space Shuttle Endeavour landing from orbit on STS-126, its 22nd spaceflight Reusable spacecraft are spacecraft capable of repeated launch, atmospheric reentry, and landing or splashdown. This contrasts with expendable spacecraft which are designed to be discarded after use.
Simulating the exact conditions of a Space Re-entry vehicle's landing - high speed, unmanned, autonomous, precise landing from the same return path Validating the landing parameters such as the ground relative velocity, the sinking rate of landing gears and precise body rates as might be experienced by an orbital re-entry space vehicle on its ...
For the V-2 rocket, just reaching space but with a range of about 330 km, the maximum speed was 1.6 km/s. Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo which is under development will have a similar free-fall orbit but the announced maximum speed is 1.1 km/s (perhaps because of engine shut-off at a higher altitude). [citation needed] [needs update]
The minimum temperature the countdown may proceed at was determined by a table of temperatures determined by wind speed and relative humidity ranging from 36 °F (2 °C) (high humidity, high winds) to 48 °F (9 °C) (low humidity, low winds). In no case was the space shuttle to be launched if the temperature was 35 °F (2 °C) degrees or colder.