![]() Although additional seats could be installed for emergencies or for exceptional needs, the Shuttle usually flies with a complement of seven astronauts. Usually, four seats are provided on the upper flight deck with a further three seats on the mid-deck area. The total interior volume of the crew compartment is 2,325cu ft and the atmosphere, maintained at 14.7lb/sq in, is a constant 80/20 mix of nitrogen and oxygen. The critical dimensions of the orbiter were shaped by the requirement to provide a cargo bay 60 feet long and 15 feet in diameter. The two rear-facing and upper facing windows are used for rendezvous and docking maneuvers and for observing activity in the payload bay. The forward-facing windows are used by the two pilots for entry and landing as well as some on-orbit operations. There are 11 main windows in the crew compartment: 6 wrapped around the forward area of the flight deck, 2 in the aft bulkhead, which faces directly into the payload bay, 2 in the roof of the flight deck and 1 in the side hatch on the left side of the crew compartment in the mid-deck area. It also has provision for an airlock that allows astronauts to leave the crew compartment and move into the unpressurised cargo bay, which forms the main section of the mid-fuselage assembly. The pressurized crew compartment is 17½ft high, 16½ft long and the forward cylindrical nose section is 10.6ft in diameter. In weightlessness, access to the flight and mid-deck areas is a matter of simply floating through one of two hatches, each 26 in x 28 in. The mid-deck area is accessed directly when the vehicle is on the ground, with the flight deck above and the equipment bay below. It can also be used to escape from the Orbiter if it is unable to land after re-entering the atmosphere. There is only one way in or out of the Orbiter on the ground, through the 40in diameter circular side hatch which, with the Orbiter on its landing gear, opens downwards or, with the Orbiter on the launch pad, to the side. ![]() It is of welded construction to achieve an air-tight pressure vessel capable of providing a shirt-sleeve environment and of sustaining the crew with an atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen at sea-level pressure (14.7 lb/sq in). The pressurized crew compartment is attached to the forward fuselage at four locations. The stringers are located 35in apart while the vertical frames are 30–36in apart, riveted to the stringer panels. The forward fuselage is fabricated from 2024-T81 aluminum alloy with skin-stringer panels, frames and bulkheads. This consists of upper and lower sections divided horizontally, which fit like a clamshell over the pressurized crew compartment where the astronauts live and work when they are not space walking or transferring to another spacecraft. It would also be called upon to lift large modules into orbit for a space station, and carry a wide range of satellites and spacecraft to be deployed in different trajectories, some of which would be sent to the outer regions of the solar system by the rocket motors attached to them. At first it was an experimental vehicle designed to be adapted later to operational requirements, which included carrying satellites into space. But the Shuttle would follow its own development path. ![]() Two may be considered as such: the Mach 3 Lockheed SR-71 spy plane and the 1,400mph Concorde, the world’s first commercially viable supersonic airliner. Very few aircraft designed for operational use break completely new ground in their operating environments. The structure of the Shuttle Orbiter comprises nine separate sections, or elements: the forward fuselage, the forward reaction control system module, the mid-fuselage, the payload bay doors, the aft fuselage, the vertical tail, the two orbital maneuvering system/reaction control modules and the wing. The layout is dominated by just two requirements – to carry a design payload of up to 65,000 lb to orbit, and to fly back down through the atmosphere like an aircraft, landing like a glider so that it can be used again.īecause of these requirements the Shuttle is shaped to look like an aircraft but to operate as a spacecraft. It is about the size of a DC-9 airliner and is designed to survive the rigors of launch and landing, including vibration, high acoustic levels from the rocket engines, high levels of acceleration and various heat loads on different parts of the structure. ![]() The Shuttle Orbiter is a reusable vehicle intended to carry astronauts and cargo to and from space. He has written more than 80 books on spaceflight technology including his latest, the NASA Space Shuttle Owners' Workshop Manual. Chapter 3: Anatomy of the Space ShuttleĪuthor David Baker worked with NASA on the Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs between 19. The following is an excerpt from the new book NASA Space Shuttle Owners' Workshop Manual.
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