Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

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Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
The SCAs 905 (front) and 911 (rear) on a control and training flight
The SCAs 905 (front) and 911 (rear) on a control and training flight
Type: Four-engined cargo plane
Design country:

United StatesUnited States United States

Manufacturer:

Boeing

Commissioning:

1978

Number of pieces:

2

The Atlantis will be mounted on the SCA at the Dryden Flight Research Center
Columbia flies past the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) after the STS-32 mission
Take-off and landing of an SCA with a shuttle
Dropping off for the Enterprise flight test
Endeavor is brought back to Florida in a shuttle carrier

The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ( SCA ) transporters were two modified Boeing 747-100 aircraft for transporting the space shuttle operated by the American aerospace agency NASA . They were used to transport the space shuttles back to the Kennedy Space Center if the shuttle landing was at one of the alternative landing sites, the Edwards Air Force Bases in California and White Sands in New Mexico , or at another location. After the end of the shuttle program, the two aircraft are now serving as spare parts donors for SOFIA , a flying infrared telescope operated by NASA together with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) .

description

The SCAs transported the orbiters from their landing sites back to the launch complex at the Kennedy Space Center. For this purpose, the space shuttles were lifted onto the back of the SCA with a lifting crane, the Mate-Demate Device , and anchored there.

The flight with a space shuttle on your back brought some restrictions. The range of the Boeing 747 was reduced to around 1,900 km. In comparison, an unloaded machine has a range of 10,000 km. For this reason, an SCA had to make several refueling stops on a transcontinental flight. The SCA has a maximum altitude of 7,600 m at a speed of Mach  0.7 and a fuel consumption of around 100 liters per flight kilometer.

About 170 people prepared the SCA for a flight for about a week. A transcontinental flight cost approximately $ 1.7 million.

Both aircraft are identical in their characteristics. While one machine was normally always stationed at the Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base ( typically N911NA), the other was at Pinal Airpark in Arizona (KMZJ) (typically N905NA). By the end of the US space shuttle era, both SCAs were stationed at Edwards Air Force Base ( 34 ° 57 ′ 25 ″  N , 117 ° 52 ′ 58 ″  W ).

NASA 905

The NASA 905 machine ( aircraft registration number : N905NA) was NASA's first shuttle carrier aircraft. The Boeing 747-123, first flight on October 15, 1970, serial number 20107, serial number 86 was acquired by American Airlines on October 29, 1970 . On July 18, 1974, it was registered with NASA with the still current license plate. Its original purpose at NASA was to examine wake vortices . Your station at the time was the Dryden Flight Research Center.

In 1976, Boeing converted NASA 905. The seats were removed, brackets for the shuttle were attached and the fuselage was reinforced. At the exit point of the forward bracket on the upper deck, the third, aft window fell victim on both sides. Additional vertical stabilizers provide more stability when transporting the orbiter. The avionics and engines were improved, and an emergency exit system similar to that used in the first Boeing 747 test flights was incorporated into N905NA. The escape tunnel was later removed after the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) had been completed. It was feared that a person could get caught in an engine during an emergency exit.

The Approach and Landing tests of the space shuttle, which were carried out with this aircraft from 1977, were a series of 13 flights with the space shuttle prototype Enterprise . On five of these flights, the Enterprise landed independently after separating from the SCA. During these tests, the SCA and especially the shuttle were examined for its flight and landing characteristics.

Until November 1990, NASA 905 was the only SCA to transport the space shuttles. In addition to transporting the space shuttle between the take-off and landing sites, NASA 905 also flew the space shuttle Enterprise to Europe in 1983 for exhibitions in England, at the Paris Air Show and at Cologne / Bonn Airport (Whitsun 1983).

Remarkably, the NASA 905 continued to fly in American Airlines livery until at least mid-1982. Only the complete vertical stabilizer and the areas that were renewed for the shuttles' mounts and to stiffen the fuselage were given the current paint, parts of the upper fuselage, as is usual with American Airlines, only with a new clear coat. The American lettering was recognizable as a shadow up to the completely new and up to now current color scheme.

On December 13, 2010, test flights were carried out at St. Louis Airport in preparation for the transport of a Boeing Phantom Ray to the Dryden Test Range. This was the first transport flight in which no shuttle was mounted, but another aircraft.

The SCA N905NA has taken all decommissioned space shuttles to their final destinations. After the final flight, the aircraft was flown from Los Angeles International Airport to the Dryden Flight Research Center on September 24th to serve as a parts supplier for the SOFIA program.

It has been in the Space Center Houston since 2015.

NASA 911

The second NASA 911 of the type Boeing 747-146SR, serial number 20781, serial number 221, first flight August 31, 1973, was delivered to Japan Airlines (JAL) on September 26, 1973 . After being acquired by NASA on April 15, 1988, it was registered on Boeing with the registration number N747BL and finally registered with NASA after the conversion with the aircraft registration number N911NA. In contrast to the first SCA, this aircraft has five upper-deck windows on each side, because the SR variants were originally designed for extremely short-haul traffic with high passenger volumes, so that 10 windows were installed on both sides of the upper deck, as was later on the 747-200 variants. The rear 5 were locked for the same reason as the 905.

When it was first used in 1991, the new Endeavor space shuttle was transferred from the manufacturer in Palmdale , California to the Kennedy Space Center.

On February 8, 2012, the machine flew for the last time. It was flown to the Dryden Flight Research Center to serve as a spare parts donor for the N905NA and the SOFIA flying telescope .

Technical specifications

The comparison of the civil version of the Boeing 747-100 with the SCA:

Parameter 747-100 NASA 905 NASA 911
Crew (cockpit) 3 4th
length 70.60 m
span 59.60 m
height 19.3 m
Max. Takeoff mass 333,400 kg 323,410 kg
Engines (4 × each) P&W JT9D-7A at 206.8 kN P&W JT9D-7J at 222.4 kN
Top speed Mach 0.84 (895 km / h) Mach 0.6 (648 km / h)
Range 9,800 km 10,186 km
(1,852 km with shuttle)

Others

The rear attachment point on the N905NA bears the inscription "Attach Orbiter Here - Note: Black Side Down", which means something like "Attach space shuttle here - Note: Black side down"

See also

Web links

Commons : Shuttle Carrier Aircraft  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Boeing 747 - MSN 20107 - N905NA. Airfleets.net, accessed March 4, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Spotter photos of the N905NA (English)
  3. ↑ boeing.mediaroom.com: Boeing Phantom Ray Takes a Ride on NASA's Shuttle Carriere Aircraft , December 13, 2010
  4. ↑ a b NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft 911's Final Flight. NASA, February 10, 2012, accessed October 15, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Boeing 747 - MSN 20781 - N911NA. Airfleets.net, accessed March 4, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Spotter photos of the N911NA (English)