Spacecraft Re-Entry

NASA's website?

I hope this just in jest.

been therethey say nothing about coming down.

I have found dozens with the profile going UP, but none coming down.

And i don't have the instructions.

after lift off and untill landing, isn't it track by the (NASA) Johnson space center?

ps

actually I just did a quick google search and of all places wikipedia has some info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

The Space Shuttle reentry profile subdivides the total reentry trajectory into several segments having partially-constant control/state parameters such as maximum heat flux and deceleration. It does so by varying the angle-of-attack to maintain boundary conditions such as thermal constraints throughout the flight path and specified speed and altitude at the final time. For the optimization of high cross reentry trajectories the cross range per total absorbed heat represents an appropriate cost function. The Shuttle first flies longer along the temperature boundary at highest possible angle of attack, and afterwards by performing flare-dive segments to reduce heat flux and to increase range. The overall profile is quite complex; you may wish to contact NASA directly for details.

Exactly,

and this I also have found many places.

This is soo very strange. I can find dozens if not hundreds even on NASA sites data for going up, some highly complex, some really basic.

But no where and even several requests from NASA all you get is generalities and how it is, but no DATA whatsoever ever from anyone or anywhere.

Joe

Boeing is the prime contractor for the Shuttle (earlier Rockwell International and prior to that, North American Aviation). I suspect they'll be more helpful and more knowledgeable in this area than NASA itself.

As no two STS missions are alike, you may wish to contact Boeing about specific missions and the divisions/subcontractors responsible for defining the reentry profiles. You might also contact JPL for more information/contact info.

Hi europium,

I think your suggestion to get in contact with Boeing is a great idea.

I have not checked Boeing, and as others have said the precise details are not easy to come across at all.

GA Sir.

Take care.

I would think it would be recorded somewhere too. I was watching the NASA channel a couple weeks ago when the shuttle landed at Kennedy.

As the shuttle came in it seemed like they announced the telemetry readings at regular intervals.

Hello ATVRacer,

Thank you for your reply post, I am not sure, but, you may find a link in my post above, it is linked to the BBC after all!

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Can I get this off my chest as well .................................. :

I know I do not know all the 'ins and outs' of the NASA Scheduled Program of flights, but feel probably half of those who have lost their lives would not have done so if NASA had been a little more 'relaxed' on the 'timing' of some of these flights.

I think when you add on the 'cost' of delaying for a day, against the cost of five or six peoples lives and, the real cost of those deaths, plus the actual cost of the explosion of a quarter-to-half Billion $ aircraft and the consequences......................... I would go for delaying until the thing is sure to work properly or the 'weather window' is right.

The 'famous' and disastrous 'mistake' of sending an aircraft whose one and only, it seems, ........... success relied on a rubber seal which they could never have predicted for certain was able to take the unbelievable violence of the take off, with a >>> 'once lit, that's it'<<< attitude, 'they do not really matter'. "The Astronauts" that is.

Whether said or not, this meaning was sent round the world in seconds after the 'truth' came out.

Would NASA have not gotten more respect from all if, they had delayed the flight by a day or week or, if possible, covered the whole of the Rocket in a shroud to keep the heat in/cold out before take off; long enough to know after telemetry registered, that the rubber was indeed flexible and so therefore able to seal successfully during the launch, and so be a success in the eyes of the world rather than the biggest possible failure?

Why, when it is costing billions anyway, does NASA not build the Solid Fuel Rocket Boosters at least in the same State as the Rocket Launch Pad? .................. Forget 'Politics" when such an important thing has to be as near correct as is possible. It is 'Politics' which decided NASA to build the Solid Fuel Rocket Boosters where they were and are built. I realise there is a huge risk of explosion/s, but why trundle the Boosters, which are 'ready to fly' half way across the USA, and who can say for sure there will be no damage caused, however 'minor' when there is simply no need to do so?

bb