The Shuttle shows you its belly

In order to permit an inspection of the thermal tiles that protect the vehicle from the heat of reentry, the Space Shuttle did a backflip for the cameras while orbiting at abouty 7,700 metres per second. This was done using the dual hypergolic engines of the Orbital Maneuvering System, burning monomethylhydrazine with a nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. The BBC has a relatively low resolution video of the event.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

4 thoughts on “The Shuttle shows you its belly”

  1. The camera taking the footage is sitting on the ISS. The maneuver is standard ever since the loss of Columbia. The purpose is to get the Shuttle in an attitude where the crew on ISS can take high definition pictures of the entire heat shield, so any significant damage can be discovered, as already noted by jouke.

    Source

  2. The ASR standard unit of suckiness is the Lovelace (Ll).
    This is defined as: One Lovelace is the amount of force (measured in dynes)
    it takes to draw a round ball weighing e Troy Ounces down a tube it fits
    exactly (in air) at a speed of pi attoparsecs/microfortnight.

    Like Farads, this is a rather large measurement. Thus, Plan 9 sucks a few
    mLl, for instance, while your average Microsoft product achieves many Ll.

  3. one dyne = 1.0 × 10^(-5) newtons
    2.71828183 troy ounces = 84.5480158 grams

    The size of the tube depends on the density of the ball.

    3.14159265 attoParsecs = 0.0969395039 meters
    1 microfortnight = 1.2096 seconds (14 days, converted to seconds, times 1×10^(-6)

  4. I’m not exactly sure what you’re calulating but this reminds me that the astronaut project for CSA/NASA is finally complete…working (slowly) on some more publications :) You know, in my ‘spare time’ here at OT school …

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