NASA's Space Shuttle,
officially called the Space Transportation System (STS), is the
spacecraft currently used by the United States government for its
human spaceflight missions. At launch, it consists of a rust-colored
external tank (ET), two white, slender Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs),
and the orbiter, a winged spaceplane which is the space shuttle in
the narrow sense.
The orbiter carries
astronauts and payload such as satellites or space station parts
into low earth orbit, into the Earth's upper
atmosphere or thermosphere. Usually, five to seven crew members
ride in the orbiter. The payload capacity is 50,000 lb (22,700
kg). When the orbiter's mission is complete it fires its Orbital
Maneuvering System (OMS) thrusters to drop out of orbit and
re-enters the lower atmosphere. During the descent and landing,
the shuttle orbiter acts as a glider, and makes a completely
unpowered ("dead stick") landing.
The shuttle is the first orbital spacecraft designed for partial
reusability. It carries payloads to low Earth orbit, provides
crew rotation for the International Space Station (ISS), and
performs servicing missions. The orbiter can also recover
satellites and other payloads from orbit and return them to
Earth, but this capacity has not been used often. However, it
has been used to return large payloads from the ISS to Earth, as
the Russian Soyuz spacecraft has limited capacity for return
payloads. Each Shuttle was designed for a projected lifespan of
100 launches or 10 years' operational life. The man responsible
for the design of the STS was Maxime Faget, who had also
overseen the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft designs. The
crucial factor in the size and shape of the Shuttle Orbiter was
the requirement that it be able to accommodate the largest
planned spy satellites, and have the cross-range recovery range
to meet classified USAF missions requirement for a one-around
abort for a polar launch. Factors involved in opting for
'reusable' solid rockets and an expendable fuel tank included
the desire of the Pentagon to obtain a high-capacity payload
vehicle for satellite deployment, and the desire of the Nixon
administration to reduce the costs of space exploration by
developing a spacecraft with reusable components.
Six shuttles have been built; the first orbiter, Enterprise, was
not built for actual space flight, and was used only for testing
Length
Space Shuttle: 184 feet
Orbiter: 122 feet
Height
Orbiter on runway: 57 feet
Wingspan
78 feet
Liftoff Weight
4.5 million pounds
Orbit
115 to 400 statute miles
Velocity: 17,321 mph |
purposes. Five
space-worthy orbiters were built: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery,
Atlantis, and Endeavour. Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after
launch in 1986, and Endeavour was built as a replacement. Columbia
broke apart during re-entry in 2003.
First launched in 1981, NASA
has announced that the Space Shuttle would be retired in 2010, and
from 2014 on, would be replaced by Orion, a new vehicle that is
designed to take humans to the Moon and beyond along with its
partner rockets, the Ares I and Ares V Rockets; however, since Orion
is meant primarily for manned space flights, ESA's Automated
Transfer Vehicle, with its 7,667 kg payload, has been suggested as
an alternative for tasks like supplying space stations.
Next Page - Space Shuttle Orbiter >>
or Jump to:
Space Shuttle Main Engines
Space Shuttle External Tank
Space Shuttle Rocket
Boosters
Source:
NASA -
Wikipedia
Credit of the pictures: NASA
