Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!mike
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Shuttle landing speed
Message-ID: <16183@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Date: 8 Oct 88 05:59:29 GMT
References: <219@tekn01.chalmers.se>
Reply-To: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 43

[]

In article <219@tekn01.chalmers.se> d88_pata@tekn01.chalmers.se (PATRIK PETTERSSON) writes:
<
<Two hours ago, the shuttle landed in California. Here in Sweden I heard
<on the radio some very interesting data. They said that when the vehicle
<approched the coast of California, its speed was about 4 Mach. Later it
<was mentioned that the shuttle's speed when it came in for landing was 2
<Mach. Is this really so? Does anyone know how fast Discovery were travelling
<at the moment of touchdown? Surely it must have been lower than the speed
<of sound, or?? Finally: does the spaceshuttle have any means to decrease its 
<velocity with flaps or something alike?
<
<	Patrik Pettersson
<	Chalmers University of Technology
<	Sweden

The Shuttle lands anywhere between about 184 and 196 knots.

The orbiter passes mach 2 at around 45 nm from touchdown. It hits subsonic
speed at 22 nm, and an altitude of 49,000 feet. The speedbrake is 
activatied at an altitude of 1750 feet, and wheels are deployed at
the same time.



mike



P.S.

During the Apollo 14 coverage Walter Cronkite said that the spacecraft
was now "400,000, no, 400 million miles from earth". So those kind of
numerical flubs are rather common. A friend in Scotland sent me
a newspaper clipping about the upcoming "84 day long" Spacelab mission.



-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"he's braindead Jim. . ."
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]