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The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program.
The Space Shuttle weighed 165,000 pounds empty. Its external tank weighed 78,100 pounds empty and its two solid rocket boosters weighed 185,000 pounds empty each. Each solid rocket booster held 1.1 million pounds of fuel.
Jun 2, 2023 · 17,321 mph. * weight varied depending on payloads and on board consumables. The Space Shuttle was the world’s first reusable spacecraft, and the first spacecraft in history that can carry large satellites both to and from orbit. The Shuttle launches like a rocket, maneuvers in Earth orbit like a spacecraft and lands like an airplane.
The stack, as the composite of orbiter, tank and boosters is called, has a gross liftoff weight of 2000 tonnes. Its height is 56 m and the boosters with the three Space Shuttle Main Engines generate 30.16 MN of thrust.
Jun 30, 2011 · The heaviest space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, weighed 178,000 pounds (80,700 kg), roughly the weight of 13 African Elephants.
At 25 miles (40 km) out, the shuttle's landing computers give up control to the commander. The commander flies the shuttle around an imaginary cylinder (18,000 feet or 5,500 m in diameter) to line the orbiter up with the runway and drop the altitude.
At liftoff the entire system weighed 2 million kilograms (4.4 million pounds) and stood 56 metres (184 feet) high. During launch the boosters and the orbiter’s main engines fired together, producing about 31,000 kilonewtons (7 million pounds) of thrust.
