KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - This aerial photo of the runway at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility looks northeast. Longer and wider than most commercial runways, it is 15,000 feet long, with 1,000-foot paved overruns on each end, and 300 feet wide, with 50-foot asphalt shoulders. The runway is used by military and civilian cargo carriers, astronauts’ T-38 trainers, Shuttle Training Aircraft and helicopters, as well as the Space Shuttle. At center right is the parking apron with the orbiter mate/demate tower. The tow-way stretches from the runway to the right, passing the hangar and storage facilities. A grassy area next to the mid-point of the runway is where the new control tower is located. KSC-04pd0937
Summary
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - This aerial photo of the runway at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility looks northeast. Longer and wider than most commercial runways, it is 15,000 feet long, with 1,000-foot paved overruns on each end, and 300 feet wide, with 50-foot asphalt shoulders. The runway is used by military and civilian cargo carriers, astronauts’ T-38 trainers, Shuttle Training Aircraft and helicopters, as well as the Space Shuttle. At center right is the parking apron with the orbiter mate/demate tower. The tow-way stretches from the runway to the right, passing the hangar and storage facilities. A grassy area next to the mid-point of the runway is where the new control tower is located.
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.
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