Three locations in the United States were used as landing sites for the Space Shuttle system. Each site included runways of sufficient length for the slowing-down of a returning spacecraft. The prime landing site was the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a purpose-built landing strip. Landings also occurred at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and one took place at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. No Space Shuttle landed on a dry lakebed runway after 1991.
Various international landing sites were also available in the event of a Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) scenario, as well as other sites in the United States and Canada in case of an East Coast Abort Landing (ECAL) situation.[1] Space Shuttle landings were intended to regularly take place at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for Department of Defense missions launched from the site, but none occurred due to the cancellation of all launches from Vandenberg.
^"HSF – The Shuttle". Spaceflight.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on 30 August 2000. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
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States were used as landingsites for the SpaceShuttle system. Each site included runways of sufficient length for the slowing-down of a returning spacecraft...
is a part of the Kennedy Space Center and was used by SpaceShuttle for landing until July 2011. It was also used for takeoffs and landings for NASA training...
to ferry SpaceShuttles from landingsites back to the ShuttleLanding Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. The orbiters were placed on top of the SCAs...
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the Kennedy Space Center or Edwards Air Force Base. The Shuttle is the only winged crewed spacecraft to have achieved orbit and landing, and the first...
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from the twin rudders it is similar in shape and operation to a small SpaceShuttle Orbiter. TDV uses 600 or so heat resistant silica tiles and Flexible...
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and Space Museum. September 15, 2015. Archived from the original on October 23, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2018. "LRO Sees Apollo LandingSites". NASA...
until January 2019, when Chang'e 4 made the first landing on the far side of the Moon. Six government space agencies, Interkosmos, NASA, CNSA, ISRO, JAXA...
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the SpaceShuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS)...
expendable external tank. SpaceShuttle Columbia launched and landed 27 times and was lost with all crew on the 28th landing attempt; Challenger launched...
United States SpaceShuttle program and benefited from extensive espionage undertaken by the KGB of the unclassified US SpaceShuttle program, resulting...
for all Space Shuttle launches and most of their runway landings. For details on the launch complexes of the two spaceports, see Listof Cape Canaveral...
gliders. Four types of spaceplanes have successfully launched to orbit, reentered Earth's atmosphere, and landed: the U.S. SpaceShuttle, Russian Buran, U...
high-definition photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of the Apollo landingsites have captured the Lunar Module descent stages and the tracks...
Project in 1975. As the SpaceShuttle was being designed, NASA received proposals for building alternative launch-and-landingsites at locations other than...
the name for its SpaceShuttle Program, the only component of the proposal to survive Congressional funding approval). The purpose of the system was two-fold:...
and Space Shuttle, and launched from the Moon aboard the Apollo Lunar Module Ascent Stage 3 sites Frederick W. Sturckow (USA) – Kennedy Space Center (four...