Astronomy: Space Shuttle program

The space shuttle is the next space craft after the Atlas, the Titan and the Saturn V rockets. It takes off like a rocket, flies like a space ship and returns to Earth as an airplane. The space shuttle fleet originally consisted of the four shuttles Columbia, Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis, with the first launch on 12 April 1981 (Columbia). In 1986 the Challenger accident took place and in 2003 the Columbia burnt up, both losing the entire crew. But, until now more than 100 succesfull missions have taken place. Launch The launch takes place when the 100 million horsepower rockets start to burn and lift the spacecraft. The space shuttle accellerates, after one minute the g-forces are the strongest on the astronauts and already an altitude of 11 kilometers has been reached. Two minutes after launch the first two rockets are released at an altitude of 47 km and the shuttle has reached a speed of 5000 km per hour. The two solid-fueled rockets are used up and released, but before falling down with parachutes, they reach a maximum altitude of 67 km. They are collected by boats 280 km east of the launch site in the Atlantic Ocean. Just before reaching a stabile orbit around Earth the large fuel tank is empty and released. The tank falls back into the atmosphere and mainly burns up. The space shuttle has reached its orbit. Descending After the scientific mission of the shuttle, it closes its cargobay and fires the steering rockets to descend into Earth's atmosphere. It descends slightly tilded up, protected by the heat resitant tiles that form a heat shield. The tiles are made of sand and silicum and full of air bubbles to isolate and protect against temperature differences. The tiles are so heat resistant that immediately after being exposed to heat, the normal temperature has returned. The tiles cover the entire space shuttle, 24.100 black tiles as the heat shield for the nose and bottom and 6.800 white tiles for the less heated places. The bottom of the shuttle can easily heat up to 1300o C, even higher on the nose and the edges of the wings. The top of the shuttles heat up only to 700o C when descending. Related subjects >> Challenger space shuttle accident 1986 >> Columbia space shuttle accident 2003 >> Launches from Earth >> Cape Canaveral

The space shuttle Discovery on 26 July 2005, just before liftoff. Discovery takes off, 26 July 2005. < JPG image 800 X 600 pixels > Discovery lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California on 9 August 2005. It will be flown back to Cape Canaveral on top of a Boeing 767. Magellan 'set free' into space by space shuttle Atlantis