![]() ![]() While achievable in theory, NASA set out to quantify the magnitude of the task. Dead-stick landing a Space Shuttle-sized aircraft was uncharted territory. While Capt Chesley Sullenberger ditched an unpowered US Airlines Airbus A320 in the Hudson river, a dead-stick landing in a transport-class jet aircraft is not even a practised event. Real dead-stick landings are a rare event, a direct consequence of reliable jet engines and ejection seats. Pilots of single-engined fighters often practise engine-out landing patterns, often called an SFO (simulated flame-out landing). Landing an unpowered aircraft is routine for a glider pilot. While the Shuttle has a delta wing planform, its design was significantly influenced by the lessons learned from flying lifting-body vehicles. The thermal stress environment of hypersonic atmospheric flight, vehicle control schemes as well as descent and landing profiles were all explored by the X-15. The experience gained by flying the numerous lifting bodies in the 1960s and 1970s showed that "wingless" aircraft can be controlled in flight and glided to a safe landing on a runway. It was intended to be refitted for spaceflight but design changes would have made refitting costly and difficultĪs the Shuttle programme winds down, Flight International was able to sample the atmospheric flight experience of the delta-winged spacecraft in Houston during multi-hour training sessions in two types of simulators on 12 October - a full-motion launch and landing simulator and a fixed-based avionics integration laboratory simulator.įor the recovery/landing phase of Shuttle flight, two programmes stand out as essential to its successful development: the several lifting-body flight programmes and the X-15 hypersonic research programme. The International Space Station and Hubble Space telescope are two of the Shuttle's brightest success stories.Įnterprise was the first Space Shuttle, built for flight testing without engines or a functional heat shield. Despite the tragic loss of two orbiters and their crews, the Shuttle has put numerous civil and military satellites into orbit. While it never lofted payloads at its planned rate, the Shuttle has been a great success. The Space Shuttle promised to bring down the cost of space access with unprecedented economies of scale. While the planned launch rate was 12 a year, NASA estimated at one point that the vehicles could launch a maximum of 25 missions a year. Each orbiter was designed to have a life span of 100 launches. The Space Shuttle was the first reusable space vehicle - one that could return to Earth and land like an aircraft. Most of my generation can tell you where they were when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed at Tranquility Base on 20 July 1969.Īfter that, "one giant leap for mankind" and the conclusion of the Moon programme, the Space Shuttle promised to make space missions routine. Growing up in the USA in the 1960s I was captivated by the space programme as we raced the Soviet Union to the Moon. © James Blair/NASA A motion-based Space Shuttle simulator at the Johnson Space Center provides crews with launch and landing practice Airline Business special: CEOs to watch in 2021.FlightGlobal Guide to Business Aviation Training and Safety 2021.EDGE: A new global force in aerospace and defence.Shell Aviation: What will it take to Decarbonise Aviation?.What does the future of aviation look like in 2022?.Guide to Business Aviation Training and Safety 2022.What will it take to Decarbonise Aviation?. ![]() ![]() Airline Business Covid-19 recovery tracker. ![]()
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