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Many other planned missions were canceled due to the late development of the shuttle, and the Challenger and Columbia disasters. Four missions were cut short by a day or more while in orbit: STS-2 (equipment failure), [ 22 ] STS-35 (weather), [ 102 ] STS-44 (equipment failure), [ 193 ] and STS-83 (equipment failure, relaunched as STS-94 ).
Non-launch costs account for a significant part of the program budget: for example, during fiscal years 2004 to 2006, NASA spent around $13 billion on the Space Shuttle program, [19] even though the fleet was grounded in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster and there were a total of three launches during this period of time. In fiscal year ...
The original intention was to compensate for this lower payload by lowering the per-launch costs and a high launch frequency. However, the actual costs of a Space Shuttle launch were higher than initially predicted, and the Space Shuttle did not fly the intended 24 missions per year as initially predicted by NASA. [54] [24]: III–489–490
Had a TAL situation arisen during a launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Hao and Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean would have been the TAL sites, as would Andersen AFB, Guam with one of the longest concrete runways in the world. [19] [20] RAF Fairford was the only transoceanic abort landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle in the UK. As well as ...
The inaugural polar-orbit flight, designated STS-62-A and using Space Shuttle Discovery with Shuttle veteran Robert Crippen as commander, was planned for 15 October 1986. However, the Challenger disaster of 28 January 1986 grounded the Shuttle fleet as efforts were concentrated on recovery and returning the program to flight after a two-year ...
Nuclear Ferry and Shuttle Orbiter docked to an Orbital Propellant Depot. The Space Transportation System (STS), also known internally to NASA as the Integrated Program Plan (IPP), [1] was a proposed system of reusable crewed space vehicles envisioned in 1969 to support extended operations beyond the Apollo program (NASA appropriated the name for its Space Shuttle Program, the only component of ...
The positioning had to be precise. The shuttle's nose was raised 200 feet into the night sky so that the rudder could clear 80 feet of space. Endeavour was then turned 17 degrees clockwise to ...
At one point before retirement, extension of the Space Shuttle program for an additional five years, while a replacement could be developed, was considered by the U.S. government. [4] Some programs proposed to provide access to space after the shuttle were the Lockheed Martin X-33, VentureStar, the Orbital Space Plane Program, and Ares I launcher.