Soham Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 MIAMI (Reuters) - The return of the space shuttle Discovery to its home port in Florida, riding piggyback on a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet, was delayed on Saturday because of potentially bad weather along its route, NASA said.Discovery had landed at Edwards Air Force base in California on August 9, completing NASA's first shuttle mission since its sister ship Columbia fell apart over Texas in February 2003. After leaving Edwards on Friday, Discovery had landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana to spend the night. The U.S. space agency said in a statement the shuttle and its carrier would stay there until Sunday. Weather across Alabama, Georgia and Florida did not appear to be good enough to meet the safety requirements of the cumbersome aircraft. NASA had tried to land Discovery at its home base at Cape Canaveral but Florida's fickle and thundery summer weather forced the agency to divert the spacecraft to Edwards in the Mojave Desert. It costs roughly $1 million to transport a shuttle 2,200 miles cross-country. A shuttle was last carried on top of the modified jumbo back to Kennedy Space Center in June 2002. The 100-ton shuttle and its jet carrier fly at about 15,000 feet -- about half the altitude of commercial jet traffic. The next shuttle mission to the International Space Station will not occur until next March -- a six-month delay -- while engineers try to find out why insulating foam fell off Discovery's external fuel tank during its July 26 liftoff. Falling foam doomed Columbia when a briefcase-sized chunk knocked a hole in its wing at launch. During the space craft's re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, superheated atmospheric gases tore into the gap. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Kompressor Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 I'm always amazed at how this is done. piggy backing the 747. 100 tons added to an already heavy plane. And the air flow must disrupted with it on the back. ? Must be a bumpy flight. Imagine if it falls off the back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strekship Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 Here is a picture of it: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webeagle12 Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 no offence lunix, but chill on gd posts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I8PP Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 The front supports doesn't even look like something that could hold up such a massive load. :wacko: The landing this morning was pretty cool though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obi-Wan Kenobi Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 My sister saw the jet/shuttle at Barksdale AFB! Awesome! :alien: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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