Space Shuttle Transport

Space shuttle b747 carrier aircraft this is a 1 288 plastic space shuttle nasa transport model kit from academy plastics.
Space shuttle transport. Commanding the 54 hour mission was astronaut. The shuttle carrier aircraft are two extensively modified boeing 747 airliners that nasa used to transport space shuttle orbiters. The crawler transporters carry vehicles on the mobile launcher platforms used by nasa and after each launch return to the pad to take the platform back to the vab. They were originally used to transport the saturn ib and saturn v rockets during the apollo skylab and apollo soyuz programs.
National aeronautics and space administration nasa. The scas were used to ferry space shuttles from landing sites back to the shuttle landing facility at the kennedy space center. The first reusable spacecraft nasa s columbia orbiter launches skyward on april 12 1981 on nasa s first ever shuttle flight sts 1. They were then used to transport space shuttles from 1981 to 2011.
Here it is in ti. The three space shuttle main engines in conjunction with the solid rocket boosters provide the thrust to lift the orbiter off the ground for the initial ascent. Space shuttle also called space transportation system partially reusable rocket launched vehicle designed to go into orbit around earth to transport people and cargo to and from orbiting spacecraft and to glide to a runway landing on its return to earth s surface that was developed by the u s. The main engines continue to operate for 8 5 minutes after launch the duration of the shuttle s powered flight.
At launch it consists of a rust colored external tank two white slender solid rocket boosters and the orbiter a winged spaceplane which is the space shuttle in the narrow sense. It s for ages 10 and up. Transporting kids from space to space. The space shuttle program is the major segment of nasa s national space transportation system nsts managed by the office of space flight osf at nasa headquarters in washington d.
The office is headed by an associate administrator who reports directly to the nasa administrator and is charged with providing executive leadership overall direction and effective accomplishment of the space shuttle and associated programs including unmanned launch vehicles. Nasa s space shuttle is the spacecraft currently used by the united states government for its human spaceflight missions.