Air Force also conducted studies on semi-reusable spacecraft in the 1960s. The X-15 program in the 1950s tested the idea of flying a space plane. The space shuttle grew out of several efforts to develop reusable spacecraft. Smaller thrusters located at the shuttle's nose and aft fuselage were used for small flight adjustments. The aft fuselage held the orbital maneuvering system, main engines and vertical tail. The bay could hold satellites, modules containing whole laboratories, and construction materials for the International Space Station. The mid-fuselage housed a 60-foot (18-meter) payload bay and robotic arm. The largest crew size for a shuttle mission was eight astronauts. The crew compartment, located in the forward fuselage, normally carried crews of seven astronauts, but occasionally carried fewer people. It was 122 feet (37 meters) long and had a wingspan of 78 feet (23 m). The orbiter was about the same size as a DC-9 aircraft. The orbiter is the component most people think of as "the shuttle." It was the heart and brains of the system and the actual ship that took people to space and brought them back. Most of it burned up in the atmosphere, and the rest fell into the ocean. With its fuel spent, the tank separated and fell along a planned trajectory. (Image credit: NASA)Īfter the solid rocket boosters separated, the orbiter carried the external tank to about 70 miles (113 km) above the Earth. Once empty, this huge orange tank separated from the rest of the apparatus and fell back to Earth. It served as the "gas tank" for the space shuttle on launch. The external tank was the only part of the space shuttle not reused from launch to launch. Ships recovered them, and they were refurbished for reuse. About 24 miles (45 kilometers) up, the boosters separated from the external tank and descended on parachutes into the Atlantic Ocean. The solid rocket boosters (SRBs) operated for the first two minutes of flight to provide additional thrust needed to get the shuttle into orbit.
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