Space Shuttle Landings

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

dohmixer

Guest
Does anybody know why the space shuttle has such a small window of time when returning to earth?<br />Since it is orbiting anyhow it seems to me it should be able to drop into its landing site be it florida or california when it is in the proper orbit for a landing. Thanx from any knowledgeable folks for answering.
 
D

drwayne

Guest
Note that the Shuttle is usually in an inclined orbit. This means, among other things, that each time around the Earth takes it over a different path on the Earth. <br /><br />So the bottom line is, you not only have to be in the right orbit, but also at the right time. <br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>
 
D

drwayne

Guest
Thanks, I could not remember what the cross range was...<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>
 
J

jschaef5

Guest
Wouldn't this be cool....<br /><br /><br />You take the 747 piggyback plane and fly it up to say 30,000 feet and then land the shuttle on the top and then land. Now that would be cool, like incase the gear broke. I'm sure theres tons of stuff that needs to be done on the ground to strap the shuttle on but imagine landing the shuttle on a plane.<br /><br /><br />Whoa this just gave me an idea. We make a giant HELIOS type plane that can stay up for long amounts of time using the sun, maybe throw in some helium ballons and you got yourself an aircraft carrier floating plane.... You could have like a refueling station and could be used as a stepping stone to orbit instead of using a plane like the White knight, you could tow your rockets up in a cargo plane, set them up and launch from 40,000+ feet. It would be much more efficient than having a million white knights if space tourism really takes off.<br /><br />Just a crazy idea.... don't mind me, carry on with your discussion about landing the shuttle... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
C

CalliArcale

Guest
It would be very cool to land the Space Shuttle on an airplane. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> It would also be extremely dangerous. It's not even something hot-shot stunt pilots usually consider, and they fly very light airplanes. The Shuttle is over a hundred tons, and travelling very fast without any power. That gives it an extremely narrow operational envelope as it is; I think it would get very dicey even trying to fly in formation with a 747, much less dock with it midair, especially since 747s are notorious for their huge wakes. (There was a plane crash in New York not long after 9/11 that was basically caused by a 747's wake. And the downed plane was much easier to fly than the Shuttle.)<br /><br />Probably the best place to look for information would be the ALT program: Approach and Landing Tests. The non-spaceworthy orbiter Enterprise was carried aloft by a 747. It then separated at altitude and glided to a landing. You'd probably want to look into how they did this, and whether there were any difficulties while flying near the 747.<br /><br />In the end, though, I don't think there would be much point. The Shuttle has to get to the ground anyway in order to be serviced; what goes up must come down. It might as well do it on its own gear. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
H

henryhallam

Guest
Could a 747 descend fast enough? They have to turn on full thrust reversers in flight on the Gulfstream used for training in order to get the glide characteristics close to those of the orbiter. I'm not sure a 747 could handle that or if it would be enough.<br />Also remember it is only very late in the descent that the orbiter goes subsonic and it the ROD is so high that you'd really struggle to dock before it hit the ground.
 
J

jschaef5

Guest
Wake turbulance comes mostly during take off and landing primarily due to the heavy configurations at these points. And they are also generaly formed at the wingtips and go out and down, the jets causes a little distrubance but that doesn't go very far. In order to physically land the shuttle on the 747, the 747 would have to come in from behind it because if i remember right the 747 piggyback plane has a HUGE tail. It would have to come up from behind which im not sure how much trubulance the shuttle would make on the 747 at this point. The main problem with the docking would be getting the shuttle slow enough and the 747 fast enough which was stated above by a couple people. I'm not to sure that this could be done but couldn't the shuttle perform a manuveur that would be somewhat like a steeper dive, and then pull up and flare it onto the plane. By doing this they would have the speed to get the high angle of attack and then almost stall it with a high nose attitude to get the drag needed to slow down and then just plop down on the 747. This scenario is nearly impossible but the thought behind a concept like this is a bit facinating, or atleast i think so. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
J

jschaef5

Guest
<font color="yellow">Probably the best place to look for information would be the ALT program: Approach and Landing Tests. The non-spaceworthy orbiter Enterprise was carried aloft by a 747. It then separated at altitude and glided to a landing. You'd probably want to look into how they did this, and whether there were any difficulties while flying near the 747. </font><br /><br />If I can find some time later I will google around a bit on it, if you know of any good sites with maybe movies or info on it you should let me know <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
C

CalliArcale

Guest
Was that the one with the really bad porpoising?<br /><br />Thinking of two vehicles flying in formation at opposite ends of their flight envelopes, has anyone else seen a video of an SR-71 being refuelled from a KC-135? That's hair-raising. The SR-71 is flying just barely above its stall speed, while the KC-135 is flying as fast as it possibly can. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
J

jschaef5

Guest
<font color="yellow">That would be called a mid-air collision. </font><br /><br />i like to call it a docking<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Formation flying requires a lot of power and/or drag changes. With the Orbiter at the bottom of the energy scale and the 747 at the top of its, there is no safe match for either to change to match the other. </font><br /><br />I am not sure what you mean by this. I always thought formation flying required equal airspeeds. As long as they could match long enough to 'dock' and to keep their accelerations somewhat equal so the force of one on the other isn't too great. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
C

CalliArcale

Guest
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I always thought formation flying required equal airspeeds. As long as they could match long enough to 'dock' and to keep their accelerations somewhat equal so the force of one on the other isn't too great.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />That's the problem in a nutshell, actually. It's hard enough doing that with powered aircraft just to do a mid-air refuelling. It would be orders of magnitude more difficult to do that with an unpowered supersonic glider as one of the aircraft. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
J

jschaef5

Guest
Yah I heard about the mid air, my home is about 30 minutes from where they crashed. One went to manuveur over to get a photo of the other and came up and clipped the other guy. One completely crashed, the other managed to get to Watertown to land.<br /><br /><br /><br />Why would the orbiter have to be the active partner, they would both be moving in the right way at the right time to do it. If the entire docking was controlled by computers I think it might have a chance. What I am thinking is have the shuttle get into a stall right above the 747. Basically all the 747 has to do is come up at the right time when the shuttle is stalling and dropping. Somehow the 747 would then drop slowly along with the shuttle but not as fast and they could connect in unison in as they both drop. The 747 could then point nose down more and pull they can pull forward together. By drop i mean sink down, anyone who's been in a stall knows the feeling thats right before the stall when the wings have reached the critical angle.<br /><br />For the shuttle I am guessing this angle would be really small so it would be able to almost sink in a near horizontal position while the 747 would just need to fly level and maybe keep a bit of flaps, then at thr right time drop power and drop the flats and it should sink a bit?<br /><br />I can picture the scenario out in my mind but its hard to explain. I know it would be nearly impossible but it would be cool to see a simulation of this trying to be done to see what happens. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
M

mcs_seattle

Guest
Other than seeing the nose lift at the end, I never would have suspected that anything was out of the ordinary on that landing.<br />
 
S

sorehed

Guest
That looked a bit violent when the nose gear touched down.<br /><br />What would be the consequences of a gear-up landing?
 
J

jschaef5

Guest
What was the problem? or what caused the problem? Pilot error or computer error?<br /><br />it looked like it was all going ot be fine till the nose was pulled up for some reason. Did the pilot get some weird indication to tell him to pull up? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
H

henryhallam

Guest
IIRC a combination of pilot error (crew fatigue and serious dehydration because they thought the potable water supply was contaminated) and an unfamiliar landing site at high altitude which led to some air density error giving a false altitude indication (either on the panel or to the computers). I think also White Sands isn't equipped with some of the special approach navaids?
 
H

henryhallam

Guest
As usual I see I have been "pipped to the post" with more accurate information <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />I will try to dig out that plot, computer was reformatted recently so it may take a bit of digging...
 
H

henryhallam

Guest
I was all set to go to Kent (3 hour train ride) but one of my friends got ill and I had to babysit her... lucky I didn't go because Steve diverted to Bournemouth! I have emailed and asked whether they will be taking the aircraft to any other fields in the UK before returning across the Atlantic but no response yet. Presumably they have to replace the blown tires and fix the generator.<br /><br />If it is still at Bournemouth next weekend I might try to get down there. <br /><br />edit: "across the channel"? I must be losing it...
 
J

jschaef5

Guest
Dang, I had never heard about this. They got sick in space? wow that would be a mess.... I don't even want to think about puking in 0 g. <br /><br /><br />About global flyer:<br />You can always go and see it in the Smithsonian... <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
D

drwayne

Guest
I've seen some pretty good, non-sick pilots put a plane into PIO. <br /><br />On those *rare* occasions when I let someone talk me into a simulator - I end up chasing the plane at the drop of a hat - and *then* I get sick. (Haven't barfed yet in one though)<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>
 
J

jschaef5

Guest
All i know is that when i am flying and i go back and forth from + to - g's really quickly like a rollercoaster almost and do it for atleast several minutes, I start to feel it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts