Landing the space shuttle

Lndwarrior

Lndwarrior

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I just read the article by Charlie Precourt in this month's issue of Sport Aviation. He is a former space shuttle pilot and recounts the process of learning to land the shuttle, as well as a detailed description of his landing.

While this may be old news, there was one sentence in the article which made me do a double take:

"Overhead Seattle, we were 17 minutes from touchdown .... at Kennedy Space Center in Florida."

Say what??? That can't be right!

There are not too many aviation statistics that surprise me any more - but that one sure did.

Apparently descending at Mach 22 (not 2.2) will get you across the country a little faster than American Airlines.

Mr. Precourt is a good story teller and the article is a fascinating read. Check it out if you are a subscriber.

There's just one thing about this that bothers me. How the heck do you stay ahead of an aircraft doing Mach 22??? I can barely keep up doing 0.13 mach (100 mph)!
 
I live in Plano, TX. Years ago I was at a stoplight on my way home around 5 PM and happened to look to the South. I saw a very bright fast moving object traveling East, illuminated by the late afternoon sun. It only took me a few seconds to realize it was the shuttle, deorbiting and on its way to KSC.

It took me 10-12 minutes to get home, and I ran inside to turn on the TV and tune to the NASA channel. When I did, the long range cameras had already picked up the orbiter, and less than three minutes later it was on the ground.
 
Lndwarrior said:
Overhead Seattle, we were 17 minutes from touchdown .... at Kennedy Space Center in Florida."
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That’s even hard for my little pea brain to comprehend!

So, what... about an hour to circumnavigate the globe?
 
Around an hour and a half while in orbit, similar to the ISS. Orbital periods are determined by orbit altitude. Geostationary satellites take ~24 hours to orbit.
 
"Shuttle, approach, traffic 12 o'clock and 2000 miles, multiple targets."
 
A few years ago at Hilton Head we watched the Space Station pass over. What’s impressive is it was over Texas when it came into view and over Nova Scotia when we lost sight of it minutes later.
 
A bit simplistic, but an interesting video on how to land the space shuttle.
 
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The re-entry trace the Shuttle left was really cool to see, especially at night. Left a fiery streak from horizon to horizon, with the trailing edge just starting to fade out as the Shuttle disappeared. Took several minutes for it to completely fade from view.

Often (and especially at the end of the program, after Columbia's loss prompted NASA to minimize the amount of time spent over land during re-entry in case it happened again), the re-entry path took the Shuttle over southern Mexico and the Yucatan. I suspect there were many people down there who were unaware of what it was they were seeing, and I often wonder what went through their minds when they saw it.

Here's a video:
 
Based on a quick Google search, there were 135 shuttle missions. They successfully re-entered and landed 133 of them. Only one failed during re-entry, and none at landing. Considering the technical details and absolute precision involved, that was quite a feat over those years. Go arounds were not an option. There was no room for mistakes. Quite remarkable.
 
Evidently the modified Gulfstream they used for training was really close to the actual shuttle in how it performaed, and a pilot had to do at least 1000 landings in it before flying a real shuttle mission.
 
deyoung said:
Evidently the modified Gulfstream they used for training was really close to the actual shuttle in how it performaed, and a pilot had to do at least 1000 landings in it before flying a real shuttle mission.
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If you're ever in Amarillo, you can see one of those Gulfstreams. I got to go in and sit at the controls. Half of the panel is Gulfstream, the other half looks like the Space Shuttle! They didn't actually land it, they did a go-around, but they had to do at least 500 of these before flying the Shuttle.

http://www.texasairandspacemuseum.org/nasa-shuttle-training-aircraft.html
 
Lowflynjack said:
They didn't actually land it, they did a go-around....
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Yup. The Gulfstream didn't land because it was simulating a Shuttle landing--the pilots flew that smaller vehicle's cockpit to the equivalent position of a Shuttle cockpit at main gear touchdown, then the go-around was initiated.

And to simulate the Shuttle's glide "performance" (or lack thereof), that poor G-II threw out its main gear, *lifted* the flaps, and engaged the thrust reversers!

From the Wikipedia entry:
To match the descent rate and drag profile of the real Shuttle at 37,000 feet (11,300 m), the main landing gear of the C-11A was lowered (the nose gear stayed retracted due to wind load constraints) and engine thrust was reversed. Its flaps could deflect upwards to decrease lift as well as downwards to increase lift.
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If the speed was correct, a green light on the instrument panel simulated shuttle landing when the pilot's eyes were 32 feet (10 m) above the runway. This was the exact position that the pilot's head would be in during an actual landing. In the exercise, the STA was still flying 20 feet (6 m) above the ground. The instructor pilot deselected the simulation mode, stowed the thrust reversers, and the instructor executed a go-around, never actually landing the aircraft (on training approaches).
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Back in 1985-86 when I was working at the Gulfstream service center at SAV, I worked on one of the shuttle trainers when they brought it in for maintenance. It was cool to sit in the cockpit on the shuttle side.

Closest I ever got to working for NASA or having the right stuff. :lol:
 
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