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Space Transportation System, Space Shuttle Main Engine, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX

description

Summary

Significance: The Space Shuttle used three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) mounted to the orbiter. The SSME was designed and developed under a contract with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama. The contract was awarded in 1971 to the Rocketdyne Division of North American Rockwell Corp., Canoga Park, California. In late 2005, Pratt & Whitney purchased Rocketdyne from the Boeing Company. Rocketdyne was combined with the rocket engine contingent of Pratt & Whitney, West Palm Beach, Florida to form a division named Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.

The SSME was a large reusable liquid rocket engine which used liquid hydrogen as fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidizer. Both propellants were stored in the External Tank. The SSME operated using the staged-combustion cycle, meaning propellants were initially burned in preburners in order to power the high-pressure turbopumps and were then burned again at a higher mixture ratio in the main combustion chamber. This cycle yielded a specific impulse substantially higher than previous rocket engines thus minimizing volume and weight for the integrated vehicle. Along with high efficiency and low weight came system complexity, high turbopump speeds, high chamber pressures, and a high thrust-to-weight ratio of sixty-six at full power level. ...

Survey number: HAER TX-116-I

NASA Photo Collection

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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Tags

shuttle program national space program space exploration space flight man in space rocket engines liquid propellant south houston tex transportation space transportation system shuttle space shuttle main engine lyndon lyndon b johnson johnson space center nasa nasa parkway houston harris harris county space shuttle texas ralph allen jennifer groman historic american engineering record national aeronautics and space administration barbara severance smart geometrics photo ultra high resolution high resolution boeing aircrafts public domain aircraft photos library of congress
date_range

Date

1969 - 1980
person

Contributors

Historic American Engineering Record, creator
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Owner
Groman, Jennifer, Historic Preservation Officer
Severance, Barbara
Allen, Ralph, Historic Preservation Officer
Smart GeoMetrics, contractor
collections

in collections

NASA

NASA Photo Collection

Space Shuttle Program

place

Location

South Houston (Tex.) ,  29.55279, -95.09307
create

Source

Library of Congress
link

Link

http://www.loc.gov/
copyright

Copyright info

No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html

label_outline Explore Barbara Severance, Liquid Propellant, Jennifer Groman

Space Transportation System, Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX

Space Transportation System, Orbiter Discovery (OV-103), Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX

Space Transportation System, Orbiter Discovery (OV-103), Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX

Houston, Texas. Woman attendant at the dry end of a paper machine

Space Transportation System, External Tank, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX

Space Transportation System, Orbiter Discovery (OV-103), Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX

Space Transportation System, Solid Rocket Boosters, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX

Space Transportation System, Orbiter Discovery (OV-103), Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A Hyster forklift transports the second of shuttle Atlantis' three main engines from the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) Shop to Orbiter Processing Facility-1 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once inside the processing facility, the engine will be installed in the shuttle. Each engine is 14 feet long, weighs about 6,700 pounds, and is 7.5 feet in diameter at the end of the nozzle. This is the final planned engine installation for the Space Shuttle Program. Atlantis is being prepared for the "launch on need," or potential rescue mission, for the final planned shuttle flight, Endeavour's STS-134 mission. For more information, visit www.nasa.gov/shuttle. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2010-5808

A new block 2 engine is lowered onto a transport vehicle for a move to the Orbiter Processing Facility. There it will be installed for its first flight on the orbiter Atlantis, on mission STS-104. The Block II Main Engine configuration is manufactured by Boeing Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, Calif., and includes a new Pratt & Whitney high-pressure fuel turbo pump. Engine improvements are managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Each Space Shuttle Main Engine is 14 feet (4.3 meters) long, weighs about 7,000 pounds (3,175 kilograms), and is 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) in diameter at the end of the nozzle KSC-01pp0898

In the Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility (SSMEPF), a new Block 2A engine sits on the workstand as technicians process it. The engine is scheduled to fly on the Space Shuttle Endeavour during the STS-88 mission in December 1998. The SSMEPF officially opened on July 6, replacing the Shuttle Main Engine Shop KSC-98pc928

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In the Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, media representatives are on hand for the installation of a Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne space shuttle main engine (SSME) into a transportation canister. This is the second of the 15 engines used during the Space Shuttle Program to be prepared for transfer to NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The engines will be stored at Stennis for future use on NASA's new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), which will carry NASA's new Orion spacecraft, cargo, equipment and science experiments to space. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle. Photo credit: NASA/Gianni Woods KSC-2012-1019

Topics

shuttle program national space program space exploration space flight man in space rocket engines liquid propellant south houston tex transportation space transportation system shuttle space shuttle main engine lyndon lyndon b johnson johnson space center nasa nasa parkway houston harris harris county space shuttle texas ralph allen jennifer groman historic american engineering record national aeronautics and space administration barbara severance smart geometrics photo ultra high resolution high resolution boeing aircrafts public domain aircraft photos library of congress