Space: Did You Know That #23

[Robert Bruce]

Did You Know:

The Shuttle

Official Name: While the name 'Shuttle' is the one that almost everyone recognizes, the full name is the Space Transportation System, or STS. The STS is comprised of the Orbiter, Solid Rocket Boosters, and External Tank.

Date started: The program was officially announced by President Nixon on 5 January 1972, and contracts were awarded for the major components that same year.

Contractors: North American Rockwell/Rockwell International (Orbiter), Rocketdyne (SSMEs) Morton Thiokol (SRBs), Martin Marietta/Lockheed Martin (ET).

Wingspan: 78 feet

Length (STS): 184 feet

Gross Take-Off Weight: 4.4 Million pounds

Empty Weight, Shuttle: 165,000 pounds

Thrust, Solid Rocket Booster: 2,650,000 pounds

Thrust, Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME): 375,000 pounds

Fuel consumption, SSMEs: 3,105 pounds per second at 100% of rated thrust

Payload capability: 50,000 lbs to low-Earth orbit

Velocity at Main Engine Cut-Off (MECO): 17,500 miles per hour

Maximum aerodynamic heating on atmospheric entry: 2,750 degrees Fahrenheit

First Flight: 12 April 1981


Courtesy NASA   

[Michael Alexander]

Are the Yanks working on a replacement for the shuttle then?

[Robert Bruce]

Are the Yanks working on a replacement for the shuttle then?

In a word - yes.

But will it resemble the now retired vehicle? Who knows?

Commercial businesses are well advanced in providing an alternative:

"Blue Origin — bankrolled by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos — proposed advancing technologies in support of the New Shepard vehicle it is designing to take off and land vertically and carry three-person crews to suborbital heights. Blue Origin spokeswoman Gwen Griffin declined to comment on the status of the company's CCDev 2 proposal.

Chicago-based Boeing announced in December it was seeking CCDev 2 money to accelerate development of a crew capsule able to launch atop various rockets. The proposed project, which includes a teaming arrangement with North Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, would build on work performed under the first CCDev round that defined Boeing's CST-100 space capsule design.

Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences is proposing to develop a lifting-body spacecraft capable of carrying at least four passengers to orbit by 2015. Orbital officials believe the spacecraft, designed to launch atop a ULA-built Atlas 5 rocket and dock with the international space station, could be ready for test flights as early as 2014.

Sierra Nevada's plan also involves a runway-landing, lifting-body vehicle called Dream Chaser that the company has been working on for several years. The Sparks, Nev.-based company garnered the largest first-round CCDev award with $20 million to build and test a vehicle structure and propulsion system.

Both Orbital and Sierra Nevada are teaming with Virgin Galactic of New Mexico to market commercial rides on their respective spacecraft and conduct drop tests of their lifting-body space vehicles using Virgin's WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, the companies announced in December.

SpaceX's proposal would begin work on a launch-abort system that would enable the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company's Dragon space capsule to carry astronauts. ULA, the Denver-based Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that builds and operates the Atlas 5 and Delta rocket families, supported multiple first-round CCDev projects and also won its own award to develop emergency-detection system technologies needed before astronauts can launch atop its rockets. The company's CCDev 2 proposal expands on work completed under its first-round contract.

ATK announced Feb. 8 that it is partnering with Les Mureaux, France-based Astrium Space Transportation to build a crew launch vehicle, dubbed Liberty, that would combine an Ares 1-derived solid-rocket first stage with an upper stage derived from the Ariane 5 rocket's cyrogenic main stage.

ATK and Astrium said they could field a vehicle quickly enough for a 2013 inaugural flight, with a second flight in 2014 followed by operational capability in 2015."

Courtesy Space News