Crewmembers begin to configure the onboard computers for entry, as well as the hydraulic system that powers the shuttle's "aerosurfaces" its wing flaps and rudder. An hour later, the payload bay doors are closed.
Mission Control gives the shuttle commander in the case of STS, astronaut Chris Ferguson the go-ahead to initiate Ops 3, the portion of the orbiter's flight control software that manages entry and landing. At 2 hours before landing, the astronauts don their orange spacesuits and strap themselves into their seats. An hour later, the shuttle cruises into position at miles km above Earth, and on the opposite side of it from KSC.
At this point, soaring at a speed of 16, mph 26, kph , it undergoes the "deorbit burn," flipping around and firing its engines against its direction of motion. The Starliner will rely on six of them a seventh, in the center, deploys only for an emergency water landing.
The outer bag has vents that release pressure upon landing, while the inner tube remains firm. Not only is the airbag system lighter than the Soyuz rockets, it should be easier on bodies already depleted by half a year in space, McCarley says.
Ken Bowersox is one enthusiast. That compares to a tolerable 1. Soyuz passengers already land reclined, with an individually designed seat liner. But McCarley was determined to improve on that with modern ergonomics. He started with a pile of plywood in his garage. The company also added 3D printing technology to shape an entire custom seat for every Starliner passenger.
Given the compact space available, this involved intensive study of human body types. McCarley, who is a stocky 6'1", and Starliner systems engineer Melanie Weber, who stands a bit shy of five feet, modeled themselves for the outer limits of permissible size.
The Boeing team also wanted to improve on the Soyuz-era parachutes. As for where the capsule will set down, the Starliner team is more comfortable with their precision landing than were early NASA engineers. Ground crews have been combing for long-forgotten telephone poles and other obstacles, and conducted extensive environmental and cultural surveys to ensure both the safety of the astronauts and the integrity of the land. The Dugway Proving Ground, for example, was established by the Army during World War II to test chemical and biological weapons, and also happens to be an archaeological treasure trove of Native American artifacts dating back 13, years.
In January , the company posted a futuristic second video depicting a tidy trapezoidal spacecraft making an unhurried vertical landing sans parachute, buoyed by flames shooting out from the four corners of its base at approximately degree angles. But those flame-shooting SuperDraco thrusters, as Musk subsequently named them, were aimed at more than lowering a 14,pound Crew Dragon capsule onto a helicopter pad anywhere on Earth.
SpaceX insisted they could bring a ship of similar mass safely to the surface of Mars, where the atmosphere is too thin to land anything of that weight by parachute.
SpaceX unveiled a Crew Dragon prototype in with high hopes for its prospects on two planets. In , it posted video of a test model hovering confidently several yards above a platform in Texas. Then Musk called it off. During this time, the orbiter is cooling and noxious gases, which were made during the heat of re-entry, blow away.
Once the orbiter is powered down, the crew exits the vehicle. Ground crews are on-hand to begin servicing the orbiter. The shuttle's technology is constantly being updated. Next, we'll look at future improvements to the shuttle. On the morning of February 1st, , the space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, more than , feet above Texas.
The subsequent investigation revealed the cause of the accident. During lift-off, pieces of foam insulation fell off the ET and struck the left wing. The insulation damaged the heat protection tiles on the wing.
When Columbia re-entered the atmosphere, hot gases entered the wing through the damaged area and melted the airframe.
The shuttle lost control and broke up. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. It would seem intuitive to use a smooth surface to create a minimal amount of drag, however, NASA engineers resorted to a material with small gaps increasing turbulent flow to create a secondary air barrier to resist the heat.
In comparison, it would be an equivalence of an airline pilot initiating a descent which takes only 2 minutes to hit the ground. The immense rate of descent is surprisingly beneficial to reentering the atmosphere. The large swept back wings exhibit a large amount of lift which would cause the shuttle to skip off the atmosphere is it increases in density- similar to skipping a rock off of a pond.
To counteract the force, a computer guidance sequence initiates a degree pitch to cause the shuttle to plummet into the atmosphere. The craft continuously slows down, however, the lift from the wings causes the aircraft to maintain a large velocity, much too fast if the shuttle was to land with a direct approach. The force of lift must be counteracted to achieve a safe level of speed, therefore, the shuttle is tilted onto its side causing the direction of lift to be perpendicular to the ground.
Of course, the space shuttle is then put off course requiring it to be rotated degrees to direct the force in the opposite direction. The aircraft continuously performs the maneuver until it straightens out 20 km from the runway allowing the commander to perform the final approach. The commander lines up the module and drops the gears at the last possible moment. Without any thrust, there is only one attempt at landing. Opening the gears too soon creates a significant amount of drag that would cause the shuttle to stall and plummet to the Earth.
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