Shuttle Landing Facility

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Shuttle Landing Facility
Shuttle Landing Facility.jpg
Characteristics
ICAO code KTTS
IATA code TTS
Coordinates

28 ° 36 '54 "  N , 80 ° 41' 40"  W Coordinates: 28 ° 36 '54 "  N , 80 ° 41' 40"  W.

Height above MSL 3 m (10  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 11 km east of Titusville
Street SR 402
Basic data
opening 1976
operator NASA
surface 202 ha
Flight
movements
3,442 (2004/05)
Start-and runway
15/33 4572 m × 91 m concrete

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The Shuttle Landing Facility ( SLF ) is an airfield on the Kennedy Space Center that was built by NASA to land the space shuttle there.

The first US space shuttle landing on the SLF took place on February 11, 1984. After the eight-day flight STS-41-B , the Challenger went down on the runway. The ISS supply spaceship Dream Chaser is scheduled to land on the same site from 2021 .

Railway and equipment

Atlantis landing after STS-112

The SLF has only one runway, which is 3.2 km northwest of the Vehicle Assembly Building . It is referred to as Runway 15 or 33, depending on the direction from which you are approaching ( compass directions 150 ° and 330 °).

The foundation stone of the SLF was laid in April 1974. After two years of construction, the facility was completed and put into operation by NASA.

The runway is 4572.0 m long and made of concrete. Since there is an extension of 304.8 m at each end, the total length is 5181.6 m, making the SLF one of the longest railways in the world. The slope is 91.4 m wide and has asphalt strips 15.2 m wide on both sides. This has been compacted so that it can carry the weight of an orbiter.

The concrete layer of the runway is 41 cm thick in the middle and drops three centimeters to the sides. Originally the slope was criss-crossed with transverse grooves to ensure that the water drained off when it rained. The grooves were each six millimeters wide and deep and three centimeters apart. Later the first 1070 m at both ends of the runway were leveled until the entire runway was smoothed in 1994. This was done to reduce the abrasion of the tires through the grooves.

Mate / Demate Device

There is a parking lot (167.6 m × 149.3 m) at the southern end of the runway. On this in the northeast is the lifting platform called Mate / Demate Device , with which an orbiter is dismantled from the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft . The parking harbor is connected to the Kennedy Parkway North via an exit. A little further south is the exit to the Orbiter Processing Facility .

use

The runway is mainly known for the landing of space shuttles, however shuttle crews also landed here before take-off and for the terminal countdown demonstration test . In addition, a KC-135 parabolic aircraft and Pegasus rocket launchers take off from here . In the OTV-4 mission, it was used for the unmanned military spacecraft X-37B .

Web links

Commons : Shuttle Landing Facility  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b AirportIQ 5010: NASA Shuttle Landing Facility. GCR1.com, accessed July 14, 2018 .
  2. Justin Ray: X-37B spaceplane returns to Earth and makes autopilot landing in Florida. Spaceflight Now, May 7, 2017, accessed December 27, 2018 .