Xref: utzoo sci.aeronautics:90 sci.space:14353 sci.space.shuttle:3717 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!venera.isi.edu!raveling From: raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling) Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: X-30, Space Station Strangles NASP Message-ID: <9991@venera.isi.edu> Date: 4 Oct 89 00:48:00 GMT References: <5292@eos.UUCP> <4983@omepd.UUCP> <1989Sep29.164255.28849@utzoo.uucp> Sender: news@venera.isi.edu Reply-To: raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling) Organization: USC Information Sciences Institute Lines: 28 In article <5292@eos.UUCP>, eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes: > > Some years back I was looking at X-15 flight paths. These weren't trivial > tests, they had to fly all the way to Utah to launch and get to EAFB. > Imagine what troubles would have been. In the case of the X-15 the high speed part needed lots surface space, but once the speed dropped the vertical space it needed was another attention-getter. In the worst case, inadvertent speed brake deployment, the landing pattern was a 270-overhead, entered from 42,000 feet. A vertical view of the pattern up to final approach looks like a tightening curve with a typical radius of about a mile. It's a 45-degree banked turn @ 300 kt IAS, winding up as TAS decreases with altitude, using about 2 minutes from pattern entry to touchdown. Call it about 20,000 fpm descent rate. Can any of the NASA folks post info on the shuttle's approaches? Isn't the standard pattern a simple 180? What sorts of descent rate or glide slope profile does the shuttle have as a function of altitude & airspeed? ---------------- Paul Raveling Raveling@isi.edu