Hitch A Ride on a Shuttle Solid-Fuel Rocket Booster ...

that was different

Absolutely amazing!

Thanks.

So the SRBs are recovered and reused. I am glad I don't have to reload them. I have wondered though about the great orange fuel tank. Does it also get reused? I bet our space folk can tell...

Bill

It is not reused. When the Solid Rocket Boosters separate at an altitude of approximately 45 kilometers (28 miles), the orbiter, with the main engines still burning, carries the external tank piggyback to near orbital velocity (somewhat less than 7,743 m/s, 27,870 km/h, 17,320 mph), approximately 113 kilometers (70 miles) above the Earth. At this point it is moving much too fast to simply fall back into the atmosphere as do the SRBs. The now nearly-empty tank separates and falls in a preplanned trajectory with the majority of it disintegrating in the atmosphere and the rest falling into the ocean.

Shuttle external tank reentry, April, 1985