Shuttle Training Aircraft

Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA ) are aircraft from NASA, which the handling and control of a space shuttle during landing simulated in order to prepare the astronauts on the landing. It involves modified Gulfstream II Meanwhile, the fleet is decommissioned after the end of the shuttle program.

Equipment

The exterior decoration is modified so that it faithfully reproduces the high aerodynamic forces during the landing of a space shuttle so that it ends up much steeper than usual aircraft.

The left seat in the cockpit of the STA is equipped just like the Space Shuttle, and the field of view was adjusted accordingly. The right place is taken by an instructor and also has the usual controls for aircraft.

STA fleet

The STAs were stationed at Ellington Field near the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston. It is not known exactly how much STAs NASA until decommissioning was still in operation. The following registration numbers possess the STAs:

  • N944NA
  • N945NA
  • N946NA
  • N947NA
  • N949NA

With adjustment of the shuttle program, the aircraft from flight operations at NASA were taken out, are distributed currently mothballed at various NASA facilities. Because the planes are due to their special features and properties as not salable, it will most likely be definitively closed down and rebuilt as exhibits. Responsible for decommissioning is the Dryden Flight Research Center, where the aircraft with the number N944NA was transferred, for example, on August 19, 2011.

Incidents

With a training flight on December 2, 2003, a STA was at 13,000 feet altitude landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center as a cockpit display reported a problem with the thrust reversers. After landing, we had to realize that a 265 kg heavy part had come loose from the machine. It was later recovered by divers from the Banana River. For the STAs a flight ban was pronounced until the cause of the incident was cleared. It turned out that the ground staff in Ellington had not worked according to the rules. Moreover, had the team who led the STA of Ellington to the KSC, from 19.5 hours is not carried out the usual review after one working day and this also not documented.

728414
de