Space Shuttle Countdown:

Landing to Launch

Part 2: Landing, a new beginning

Two miles from the Vehicle Assembly Building is the one of the world's longest runways. Unlike conventional aircraft, the orbiter lacks propulsion during the landing phase. Its high-speed glide must bring it in for a landing perfectly the first time - there is no circle-and-try-again capability.

Join Brandt Secosh and Mike Ciannilli as they host the Landing, a new beginning segment. Also with them will be Mark Weller, facility systems electrical engineer at NASA Kennedy Space Center.

In the recent STS-93 mission, Eileen Collins and Jeff Ashby landed out of the darkness onto runway 33 at the Shuttle Landing Facility after a successful mission of nearly five days and 1.8 million miles. Main gear touchdown was at 11:20:35 p.m. EDT on July 27.

What was not included in the description of the landing that night was that months before this successful touchdown, Mark Weller flew with Eileen and Jeff aboard the Shuttle Training Aircraft to investigate changing the Visual Landing Aids intensity levels for the system along the runway. As a result, the night settings were changed for Eileen to a slightly lower intensity making lights appear crisper in the high humidity.

WebCast uses RealMedia	See: Landing, a new beginning

**October Programming**
Date	Grade level	Time	Technology Required	Subject
Wednesday, Oct 13	First hour: All ages Last 30 minutes for University level questions	10-11:30am PDT 1-2:30pm EDT 5-6:30pmGMT	Watch Part 2:	Landing, a new beginning: Brandt Secosh, Mike Ciannilli take you to the runway and introduce you to aeronautic and navigation aspects unique to landing the orbiter. Details of the webcast including lesson plans are available.
Oct 14	10th grade adaptable	N/A	Web browser Read Journal	Join Brandt Secosh during the filming at the Shuttle Landing Facility through his journal entitled: Strange Transportation! The pictures and animation are great.
Wednesday, Oct 20	K-12	10am-11 PDT 1-2pm EST 5-6pm GMT	Special Chat Room Archive	Chat with Mark Weller, a good follow-up from the WebCast. During this chat, Mark will focus on the overseas landing facilities and the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC. As you can read in his profile, Mark supports critical ground support systems required to safely land the orbiter.
Thursday, Oct. 28 Note change!	K-12	10-11am PDT 1-2pm EDT 5-6 pm GMT	Canceled due to no attendance.	Chat with Larry Parker who works at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). He will be online to discuss his role in landing operations.

Lesson Helps to use in Preparation:

Shuttle Aeronautics featured in Female Frontiers lesson plans and worksheets:
Activities include lesson plans and worksheets and are cross-curricular (social studies, science, language arts and mathematics) in nature and correlate to the STS-93 space shuttle mission.

Content apropos to Space Shuttle Landing

Student Reading: Aeronautics of the Space Shuttle

Student Worksheet: Aeronautics of the Space Shuttle

Student Mathematics Activity: Glide Slope

An Adobe Acrobat version is available.
This version preserves all formatting as an easy source for downloading a printable version.

More information on these materials

Join an astronaut pilot as he explains the landing simulator at NASA Ames Research Center:

Archive of WebCast with Paul "Paco" Lockhart.

NASA Quest expert, Glen Davis shares his experience:

Opening the Hatch When the Shuttle Lands

Driving the Orbiter from the Runway to the Hangar

The four-part journal series

Helpful KSC links:

Begin preparation by looking at the Landing Facility

Simpler description of Shuttle Landing Facility

Details of entry.

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