🚀✈️ The Space Shuttle: The Spaceship That Landed Like an Airplane

Описание: Stand next to a real NASA Space Shuttle and the scale is overwhelming. The orbiter stretches about 122 ft (37 m) long with a 78 ft (24 m) wingspan - closer to a commercial airliner than a rocket. Conceived in the 1970s to make spaceflight partly reusable, the program began when Space Shuttle Columbia flew STS-1 on April 12, 1981, and ended three decades later with Space Shuttle Atlantis on July 21, 2011. At launch, three main engines fed by the external tank and two solid rocket boosters provided the thrust. The boosters peeled away minutes after liftoff and were recovered; the tank was jettisoned. In orbit, the Orbital Maneuvering System handled rendezvous and deorbit burns, the payload bay opened for satellites and experiments, and the Canadarm moved cargo and astronauts. Reentry was unpowered and unforgiving - ceramic tiles and reinforced carbon absorbed searing heat before the orbiter glided to a runway landing. The Shuttle enabled landmark missions: servicing the Hubble Space Telescope, assembling the International Space Station, and deploying critical satellites. It also bore tragedy—Space Shuttle Challenger and Space Shuttle Columbia. Seen up close, the Shuttle tells its own story: colossal engineering, fragile bravery, and the strange beauty of a spaceship that came home like an airplane.

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