System for orbital recovery of space shuttle's external tank
Abstract
The orbital recovery of the external tank (ET), backbone of the U.S. space transportation system, can be considered enormously important for the future development and colonization of space. America's ability to respond to the many space opportunities on the horizon of research, commercialization and planetary science depend on the resiliency of the space transportation system, and especially on the use of the external tank in space. The use of ET's -- as launch stages for planetary exploration, as large platforms in either low Earth orbit or geosynchronous Earth orbit to coorbit with other payloads requiring human interaction, or as an element of support for the next part of space station Freedom -- could be of fundamental importance. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method for the orbital construction of the device and the corresponding recovery of the ET.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
- Pub Date:
- January 1994
- Bibcode:
- 1994JAerE...7...92F
- Keywords:
-
- External Tanks;
- Orbital Assembly;
- Space Shuttles;
- Spacecraft Recovery;
- Orbital Rendezvous;
- Space Erectable Structures;
- Space Station Structures;
- Space Transportation