Archive for September 20th, 2009

Video of Discovery departing Edwards with the SCA. Remember you can track the ferry flight of Discovery here: NASA911

Discovery and its 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft are at Barksdale, AFB in Shreveport, LA where the ferry flight team will stay overnight. The push to KSC starts in the morning.

Discovery departed Edwards AFB at 9:20 a.m. EST, I’ll have better pictures when they are made available. Also, you can track the flight here (There are other ways to track the flight, this is just one). NASA911

As for the designation NASA911, NASA has two shuttle carrier aircraft. The one flying Discovery across country today is the second of the two. See the below information.

More information about the SCA can be found here, here and here.

NASA 905

NASA 905 was the first SCA. It was obtained from American Airlines in 1974. Shortly after acceptance by NASA, the SCA flew a series of wake vortex research flights at the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., in a study to seek ways of reducing turbulence produced by large aircraft. Pilots flying as much as several miles behind large aircraft have encountered wake turbulence that has caused control problems. The NASA study helped the Federal Aviation Administration modify flight procedures for commercial aircraft during airport approaches and departures.

Following the wake vortex studies, NASA 905 was modified by Boeing to its present SCA configuration and the aircraft was returned to Dryden for its role in the 1977 Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests (ALT). This series of eight captive and five free flights with the orbiter prototype Enterprise, in addition to ground taxi tests, validated the aircraft’s performance as an SCA, in addition to verifying the glide and landing characteristics of the orbiter configuration — paving the way for orbital flights.

A flight crew escape system, consisting of an exit tunnel extending from the flight deck to a hatch in the bottom of the fuselage, was installed during the modifications. The system also included a pyrotechnic system to activate the hatch release and cabin window release mechanisms. The flight crew escape system was removed from the NASA 905 following the successful completion of the ALT program.

NASA 905 was the only SCA used by the space shuttle program until November 1990, when NASA 911 was delivered as an SCA. Along with ferrying Enterprise and the flight rated orbiters between the launch and landing sites and other locations, NASA 905 also ferried Enterprise to Europe for display in England and at the Paris Air Show.

NASA 911

The second SCA is designated NASA 911. It was obtained by NASA from Japan Airlines (JAL) in 1989. It was also modified by Boeing Corporation. It was delivered to NASA on Nov. 20, 1990.