1981-Present.
3 components are the orbiter,
external tank, and solid rocket boosters.
The six different orbiters are the
Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis, Discovery, Endeavour.
The shuttle weighs 4.5 million
pounds at liftoff.
184 feet tall at liftoff.
At liftoff the orbiter is a rocket,
while orbiting it is a spaceship, at re-entry it is a hypersonic
glider.
It's orbital speed is 25 times the
speed of sound (approx. 19,430 miles per hour)
It can carry 65,000 pounds of
payload.
Challenger disaster: January 28,
1986, 2 minutes after liftoff, external tank exploded, killing
all 7 crew members (Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik,
Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa
McAuliffe).
Back