#orbiters — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #orbiters, aggregated by home.social.
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After #NASA retired the #Space #Shuttle in 2011, they planned to send the #Orbiters to museums. To get them ready, NASA removed the #SSME #rocket #engines and replaced them with replicas and decontaminated the parts of the Orbiter that held toxic fuel for in-space maneuvering, then be put on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
In this #photograph, #Atlantis (closer on the left) and #Endeavour (on the right) have been brought nose-to-nose for #photographers and #journalists to tell the story of the Shuttle’s #retirement.
Get a print of this image, or other merchandise, at https://heronfox.pixels.com/featured/atlantis-and-endeavour-meet-2-heron-and-fox.html
#SpaceShuttle, #SpaceShuttleOrbiter, #SpaceShuttleAtlantis, #SpaceShuttleEndeavour, #KennedySpaceCenter, #KSC, #spacecraft, #Photography
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After #NASA ended the #SpaceShuttle Program, the three #Orbiters, #Discovery, Endeavour, and #Atlantis, were all lent out to #museums for public viewing. This required the #spacecraft to be decontaminated from toxic propellants, and have their #SSME / RS-27D #rocket #engines removed for use in the #SpaceLaunchSystem and replaced by replicas.
This retrofitting required some awkward Orbiter dancing as #KSC only had 3 Orbiter Processing Facilities, and had already rented one out. So one Orbiter remained in the #VAB while another was processed.
In this #photograph, Discovery and Atlantis are changing places and meet in the middle.
https://heronfox.pixels.com/featured/atlantis-and-discovery-meet-heron-and-fox.html -
To continue our #introduction, Fox (the #photographer) studied #physics, and covered #spacescience and the work and #launches from #KennedySpaceCenter/#KSC and #CapeCanaveral/#CCAFS.
He covered the end of the #SpaceShuttle Era, including the finishing work on the #Orbiters to get them ready for display, and flying #Discovery and #Endeavour off. #Atlantis remains at the KSC Visitor's Complex Atlantis Museum.
He also covered a number of #EvolvedExpendableLaunchVehicle/#EELV launches for #NASA :nasa: , #NOAA, the #DOD, and the #NRO. Fox covered a variety of #UnitedLaunchAlliance #AtlasV and #DeltaIV #rockets, as well as the beginning of the #Falcon9's career.
Shooting the Shuttle was the best, though.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/endeavour-in-opf-3-port-name-heron-and-fox.html -
With luck, we'll have two new rovers and one new orbiter at Mars.
"Three times in the coming month or so, rockets will light their engines and set course for Mars. A trio of nations — the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — will be sending robotic emissaries to the red planet, hoping to start new chapters of exploration there."