The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development. The first (STS-1) of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights (STS-5) beginning in 1982. Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Operational missions launched numerous satellites, interplanetary probes, and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), conducted science experiments in orbit, participated in the Shuttle-Mir program with Russia, and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station (ISS). The Space Shuttle fleet's total mission time was 1,323 days.
Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, in May 2011. STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorization of STS-135, Atlantis became the last shuttle to fly.
A booster rocket is either the first stage of a multistage launch vehicle, or else a shorter-burning rocket used in parallel with longer-burning sustainer rockets to augment the space vehicle's takeoff thrust and payload capability. Boosters are traditionally necessary to launch spacecraft into low Earth orbit, and are especially important for a space vehicle to go beyond Earth orbit. The booster is dropped to fall back to Earth once its fuel is expended, a point known as booster engine cut-off (BECO).
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a fatal accident in the United States space program that occurred on January 28, 1986, when the Space ShuttleChallenger (OV-099) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard; it was the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft in flight. The mission carried the designation STS-51-L and was the tenth flight for the Challenger orbiter and twenty-fifth flight of the Space Shuttle fleet. The crew was scheduled to deploy a communications satellite and study Halley's Comet while they were in orbit. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST.
The United States Navy maintains a number of its ships as part of a reserve fleet, often called the "Mothball Fleet". While the details of the maintenance activity have changed several times, the basics are constant: keep the ships afloat and sufficiently working as to be reactivated quickly in an emergency.
The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster was the first solid-propellant rocket to be used for primary propulsion on a vehicle used for human spaceflight and provided 85% of the Space Shuttle's thrust at liftoff and for the first two minutes of ascent. After burnout, they were jettisoned and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean where they were recovered, examined, refurbished, and reused.
A solid rocket booster (SRB) is a large solid propellant motor used to provide thrust in spacecraft launches from initial launch through the first ascent. Many launch vehicles, including the Ariane 5, Atlas V, and space shuttle, have used SRBs to give launch vehicles much of the thrust required to place the vehicle into orbit. The space shuttle used two space shuttle SRBs, which were the largest solid propellant motors ever built and the first designed for recovery and reuse. The propellant for each solid rocket motor on the space shuttle weighed approximately 500,000 kilograms.
The Space Shuttle Pathfinder is a Space Shuttle test simulator made of steel and wood. Constructed by NASA in 1977 as an unnamed facilities test article, it was purchased in the early 1980s by the America-Japan Society, Inc. which had it refurbished, named it, and placed it on display in the Great Space Shuttle Exhibition in Tokyo. The mockup was later returned to the United States and placed on permanent display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in May 1988.
Shuttle-derived vehicle (SDV) is a term describing one of an array of concepts that have been developed for building space launch vehicles and spacecraft using the already developed components, technology, and infrastructure of the Space Shuttle program.
The Ares V was the planned cargo launch component of the cancelled NASA Constellation program, which was to have replaced the Space Shuttle after its retirement in 2011. Ares V was also planned to carry supplies for a human presence on Mars. Ares V and the smaller Ares I were named after Ares, the Greek god of war.
Ares I was the crew launch vehicle that was being developed by NASA as part of the Constellation program. The name "Ares" refers to the Greek deity Ares, who is identified with the Roman god Mars. Ares I was originally known as the "Crew Launch Vehicle" (CLV).
The booster separation motors or BSMs on the Space Shuttle were relatively small rocket motors that separated the reusable solid rocket boosters (SRB) from the orbiter after SRB burnout. Eight booster separation motors were attached to each of the shuttle's two reusable solid rocket boosters, four on the forward skirt and four on the aft skirt. About two minutes into a Space Shuttle flight, all 16 of these motors were fired simultaneously for 1.2 seconds, providing the precise thrust required to safely separate the spent boosters from the Space Shuttle's external tank and orbiter, while traveling more than 1,300 metres per second (2,900 mph) and an altitude of approximately 44 kilometres (27 mi).
The frangible nut is a component used in many industries, but most commonly by NASA, to sever mechanical connections. It is, by definition, an explosively-splittable nut. The bolt remains intact while the nut itself is split into two or more parts.
The Castor family of solid-fuel rocket stages and boosters built by Thiokol and used on a variety of launch vehicles. They were initially developed as the second-stage motor of the Scout rocket. The design was based on the MGM-29 Sergeant, a surface-to-surface missile developed for the United States Army at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The NASA recovery ships are two ships, the MV Liberty Star and the MV Freedom Star, that were tasked with retrieving spent Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) following the launch of Space Shuttle missions. Although owned by NASA, the ships were operated by Space Flight Operations contractor United Space Alliance. Following the end of the Space Shuttle program, and therefore booster recovery, NASA transferred both vessels to the Department of Transportation.
MVFreedom Star is a formerly NASA-owned and United Space Alliance-operated vessel which primarily served as an SRB recovery ship following the launch of Space Shuttle missions. It also performed tugboat duties and acted as a research platform.
The NASA Railroad is a Class III industrial short-line railroad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The railroad consists of 38 miles (61 km) of track connecting the mainline of the Florida East Coast Railway and trackage at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. NASA uses the railroad to deliver large or bulk materials to support its operations, particularly solid rocket boosters and chemicals such as helium and oxygen for rocket fuel.
Liberty was a 2011 launch vehicle concept proposed by Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and Astrium for phase 2 of the NASA Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program intended to stimulate development of privately operated crew vehicles to low Earth orbit.
Teleoperator Retrieval System was an uncrewed space tug ordered by NASA in the late 1970s to re-boost Skylab using the Space Shuttle.
During the lifetime of Space Shuttle, Rockwell International and many other organizations studied various Space Shuttle designs. These studies included different ways to increase shuttle payload capability, crew capacity, and developing standalone reusable launch vehicles. A large focus of the program was towards new shuttle boosters and an upgrades to the external tank but also looked to expand NASA's ability to launch deep space missions and build large modular space stations. Many of these concepts and studies would shape the concepts and programs of the 2000s such as Constellation, Orbital Space Plane Program, and Artemis program.
United States
