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Supporting Shuttle 35+ Years of Excellence at Dryden

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Supporting Shuttle 35+ Years of Excellence at Dryden National Aeronautics and Space Administration Supporting Shuttle 35+ Years of Excellence at Dryden By George H. Grimshaw / Edited by Peter W. Merlin i Contents Introduction .…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………….. iii Dryden’s Contributions to the Space Shuttle Program ………………………...…………………………...……………… 1 Dryden’s Shuttle Support Facilities, Systems and Equipment ………………………...……………….…..…….………. 8 The Shuttle Support Team at Dryden and Edwards Air Force Base ...………….……….………………………..…..... 15 The Western Aeronautical Test Range ……………………………………………………………...………………..………. 16 Department of Defense Support ………………………………………………………………………………………...……...17 The Orbiter Recovery Convoy ………………..………………...……………………………...…………………................... 19 The Runway Measurements Team ………………………...…………………………………………..……………..….……. 22 Post-landing Orbiter Servicing ………………………...…………………………………………..……………..….…..……. 23 The Orbiter Tail Cone ………….………………………...……………………………….……………………….……..………. 25 The Space Shuttle Orbiters ………………………………………………………………………………………………….….. 26 Enterprise ……………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………... 26 Columbia …………………………………………………………………………..…………….……………….……............. 27 Challenger ……………………………………………………………………………………………...…………………........ 28 Discovery ………………………………………………………………………………………………...…………………….. 29 Atlantis ………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………………… 30 Endeavour …………………………………………………………….………………………………………..………............ 31 Space Shuttle Orbiter General Information ………………………….………………………………………..…………. 33 Enterprise (OV-101) Approach and Landing and Ferry Flight Tests ………………………...………..……...……….... 34 Enterprise (OV-101 Approach and Landing and Ferry Flight Tests Log …………………………...….……..……...… 37 The Space Shuttle Mission Profile ……………………………………………………………………….………………….... 40 The Space Shuttle Mission Log ..…………………………………………………………………………………………….... 41 The Space Shuttle End of Mission Landing Sites ………………………………….………………………………………. 90 The Space Shuttle Landing Log ……………………………………………………………………………………….….….... 91 The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ...…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 94 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft Technical Specifications…………………………………………………………………………… 95 The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft Ferry Flight Log ……..……………………………………………………………………….... 97 The Shuttle Training Aircraft ...……………………………………………………………………………….……….…….... 107 Space Shuttle Facts …………….……….………………………….……………………………………….………………..... 110 Acronyms, Abbreviations and Terms…………...………………………………………………………………..………….. 111 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 135 ii Introduction When the final space shuttle mission thundered into orbit on July 8, 2011, it closed one chapter in the story of human spaceflight, and ushered in another. Building on NASA‘s legacy, America stands poised to embark on a new era of space exploration within our solar system and development of commercial space vehicles for access to low Earth orbit. The shuttle was a marvel of American engineering and the most capable and sophisticated spacecraft ever flown. As the first reusable spacecraft, it was designed to make space travel routine and allow humans to live and work in space, providing a platform for scientific and commercial opportunities. The three decades following its inaugural launch in April 1981 were characterized by both triumph and tragedy, but despite two catastrophic accidents the shuttle demonstrated a better safety record than any other existing launch vehicle. Originally known as the Space Transportation System (re-designated the Space Shuttle Program in 1990), a fleet of five orbiters made 135 flights carrying 358 individual crewmembers from 16 countries. A sixth vehicle was flown in a series of five low-altitude approach and landing tests, but never went into space. At a cost of approximately $400 million per flight, the shuttle delivered some 3.5 million pounds of cargo mass to orbit. Among the 179 payloads deployed in space were three of the so-called ―Great Observatories‖ – the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The shuttle was also used to launch several robotic spacecraft to explore the solar system including Galileo to Jupiter, Magellan to Venus, and Ulysses to study the Sun. The shuttle served as a platform for Earth sciences and environmental monitoring, human spaceflight physiology studies, material sciences, and numerous commercial and student science projects. It carried a variety of international science laboratories – such as Spacelab and Spacehab – into orbit, supported Hubble repair missions that allowed scientists to upgrade instruments, deployed Department of Defense payloads to improve national security, carried components of the International Space Station into orbit during construction, and resupplied the operational ISS with spare parts and consumables. Most important, the shuttle served as a learning tool to better understand how to live and work in space, a critical factor in the development of future space exploration missions. This publication is not meant to be a comprehensive history of the Space Shuttle Program. It simply provides an overview of Dryden‘s contributions to the program, a statistical overview of the vehicle, and its missions, and accomplishments including both milestones and trivia. A tabular format is used in order to communicate most of the content in a clear and concise way. Several sources were used in creating this publication, including the author‘s personal notes and records, Dryden Shuttle and Flight Operations Office files and records, NASA Fact Sheets, NASA.gov, Wikipedia.com, the Boeing Reporter‘s Space Flight Note Pad, and the Space Shuttle Missions Summary by Robert Legler and Floyd Bennett, which was used as the primary source in dealing with data variances between sources. Thousands of people contributed to the success of the shuttle, working in fields including design, construction, integration, testing, flight operations, processing, maintenance, and many others. This publication is respectfully dedicated to them. iii Dryden’s Contributions to the Space Shuttle Program From development of key technologies to support of operational shuttle missions, personnel at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center contributed in numerous ways to the Space Shuttle Program. Dryden personnel perform research, development and verification of advanced aerospace technologies for production, prototype or experimental vehicles. In fact, Dryden pilots and engineers were testing and validating design concepts that helped in the development of the space shuttle configuration more than a decade before testing began with the prototype Enterprise. Subsequent flight- testing at Dryden also contributed significantly to development of the space shuttle thermal protection system, solid rocket booster recovery system, flight control system computer software, drag chutes that helped increase landing efficiency and safety, tests of the shuttle landing gear, tires and braking system with a specially-designed Landing Systems Research Aircraft (LSRA), and flight testing to better understand Shuttle external tank foam debris trajectories during launch. Although Dryden is best known as NASA's lead installation for atmospheric flight research, the center has played a significant role in NASA's human spaceflight programs. Dryden's major past and present contributions to America's access to space date from the late 1950s and continue today as NASA looks toward resuming human exploration of the moon and the solar system. X-15 Hypersonic Flight Research The rocket powered X-15 was designed to explore the problems of atmospheric flight and suborbital space flight at supersonic and hypersonic speeds. It also served as a flying laboratory, carrying numerous scientific instruments up above the reaches of the atmosphere. Launched into a ballistic trajectory from beneath the wing of a modified B-52, the X-15 was capable of speeds in excess of Mach 6 and reaching altitudes above 350,000 feet – the fringes of space. Using three X-15 vehicles, researchers collected a wealth of data during 199 flights accomplished between 1959 and 1968. The program made numerous contributions to aeronautical science and technology, many of which influenced modern aircraft and spacecraft design including those of the space shuttle and the Apollo lunar spacecraft. Scientists and engineers found numerous applications for X-15 data related to hypersonic aerodynamics, advanced materials and structures, flight controls and energy management, aerothermal properties, and biomedical phenomena. The X-15 pilots – eight of whom earned astronaut wings during the program – experienced brief periods of weightlessness during their ballistic trajectories and gained experience in flying a low lift-over-drag approach to landing on the dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base, a technique used later for the space shuttle. Among the most significant areas of research pioneered with the X-15 that contributed directly to development of the space shuttle: First use of reaction controls for attitude control in space First practical use of full-pressure suits for pilot protection Development of inertial flight data systems in high-dynamic-pressure and space environments Discovery of hot spots generated by surface irregularities Discovery that the hypersonic boundary layer is turbulent, and not laminar First demonstration of a pilot's ability to control a rocket-boosted aerospace vehicle through atmospheric exit Successful transition from aerodynamic controls to reaction
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