6.2.

3 Space Shuttle: Habitable compartments

Space Mission Design and Operations
Prof. Claude Nicollier

Credits: NASA
Shuttle – Cutaway

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Shuttle – Overall view of habitable compartments

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Shuttle – Flight deck

Credits: NASA,
Jon Brack
Space Mission Design and Operations
Shuttle – Cockpit

Credits: Ben Cooper,

Launch
Photography,
Spaceflight now
Space Mission Design and Operations
Shuttle – Mid deck

Crew lockers used to store food, tools,

clothing, etc…

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Shuttle – Food preparation

Food was taken in dehydrated form.

Food preparation = re-hydration station with
selection of the volume of water injected and
the temperature of the water, heater to re-
heat the food.
The food was prepared and cooked in
Houston, taken on board, mainly in a
dehydrated form.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Shuttle – Waste Collection System

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Shuttle – Airlock

Inhabited area when spacewalk in order to go out and come back in the Space
Shuttle.
There are two stations for the two space suits.
The pressure in the airlock could be evacuated using a control system,
Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
6.2.4 Space Shuttle: From countdown to orbit
Space Mission Design and Operations
Prof. Claude Nicollier

Credits: NASA
Before launch

Shuttle Discovery on the

launchpad at Kennedy Space
Center.
Access to the cabin with an
elevator and a bridge giving
access to the White Room,
where the crew with the help
of technicians was making the
last preparations before
getting into the Space Shuttle
orbiter cabin.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In the White Room

Shuttle mission 75 in 1996.

Scott Horowitz, pilot and
Claude Nicollier
In the background: hatch that
was giving access to the mid
deck of the orbiter.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In the Flight Deck

Camera looking toward the center of the

Earth.
Crew members are lying on the back of
their seat with their feet up.
Orange Launch and Entry Suit and
helmet, there was a possibility of
pressurizing the suit in case there was
any problem with the cabin pressure
during the ascent.
There was also a possibility to
technically explode the side hatch for
rapid escape in case there was a launch
abort and the crew had to escape
rapidly before liftoff of the orbiter.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In the Mid Deck

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Launch sequence

Solid Rocket Booster ignition at T-zero

Initial vertical liftoff then shortly after roll maneuver in order to come
into the proper plane of the planned orbit which could be between
28.5 degrees (latitude of Kennedy Space Center) to 52 degrees
(inclination of the International Space Station)
Ascent until Solid Rocket Booster separation few seconds later,
which fall down into the Pacific ocean and recovered for later
flights.
Then the ascent to orbit continues for 6.5 extra minutes, for 8.5
total minutes.
And at the end of this ascent phase, there is an acceleration of the
velocity of 20,000 km/hour or about Mach 76.
Then, main engine cutoff and the Shuttle goes from 3 G to 0 G
within a very short time - about a second and a half.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In orbit

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In orbit

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
6.2.5 Space Shuttle: From orbit to post landing

Space Mission Design and Operations

Prof. Claude Nicollier

Credits: NASA
In orbit

Eileen Collins, on STS-

63 in 1995, first
woman pilot and first
woman commander of
the Space Shuttle,

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In orbit

STS-46, in 1992.
Switches are guarded to
prevent position change by
inadvertent actuation.
Velcro patches to fix
objects

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In orbit

Flight plan with the orbits,

displaced about 22 and a
half degrees from the
previous one.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Crew getting ready for reentry

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Reentry

During very hot phase of the re-entry

between about 80 km altitude and 50
km, there was about 10 minutes of
generation of heat because of the
friction of the orbiter coming in the
atmosphere
The orbiter had a high angle of
attack: about 40 degrees angle of
attack to brake in the higher layers of
the atmosphere and to enter the
lower layers of the atmosphere at a
lower speed to control the heating
and the trajectory of the spaceship.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Shuttle reentry seen from ISS

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
On the steep glide slope

There were no motors, no engines on

the Shuttle, for the last part of the re-
entry.
Steep glide slope about 20 degrees
angle towards landing runaway at
Kennedy Space Center, Florida. This
is the view that the commander and
the pilot had through the head-up
display. It was a 45-degree-located,
semi-transparent glass. The crew
could see the landscape, the runway
in particular, and some information
about guidance, speed were
projected.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Landing

After touchdown there

was a deployment of
the brake chute, a slow
slap-down, the nose of
the orbiter was coming
down until nose wheel
touch down.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Houston MCC during the landing phase

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF)

Maintenance during several months

stacking in the vehicle assembly
building. Complexity of hardware
around the orbiter for the
maintenance between flights,
especially concerning the thermal
protection system.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
In the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF)

Program started in 1981

Major achievements:
• Hubble Program
• Assembly of the ISS
• 355 astronauts to go in space
• 135 flights

Two major accidents in this program:

Challenger in 1986, and Columbia in
2003

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Last landing of the Space Shuttle (Atlantis) – July 21, 2011

Credits: NASA, Bill Ingals

Space Mission Design and Operations