Space Shuttle Enterprise

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Enterprise at SLC-6 at Vandenberg
Enterprise
Orbiter Vehicle Designation:	OV-101
Country:	United States
Contract award:	26 July 1972
Named after:	Starship USS Enterprise, NCC-1701
First flight:	Taxi Test 15 February 1977
Last flight:	Free Flight 26 October 1977
Crews:	4
Time spent in space:	Never flew in space
Number of orbits:	0
Status:	On display at Smithsonian Institution, Washington Dulles International Airport

The Space Shuttle Enterprise (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-101) was the first Space Shuttle built for NASA. It was constructed without engines or a functional heat shield, and was therefore not capable of space operations; its purpose was to perform test flights in the atmosphere.

Originally, Enterprise had been intended to be refitted for orbital flight, which would have made it the second space shuttle to fly after Columbia. However, during the construction of Columbia, details of the final design changed, particularly with regard to the weight of the fuselage and wings. Refitting Enterprise for flight would have involved dismantling the orbiter and returning the sections to subcontractors across the country. As this was an expensive proposition, it was determined to be cheaper to build Challenger around a body frame ("STA-099") that had been created as a test article. Similarly, Enterprise was considered for refit to replace Challenger after the latter was destroyed, but Endeavour was built from structural spares instead.

Contents 1 Service 1.1 Approach and landing tests 1.2 Preparation for STS-1 1.3 Retirement 1.4 Post-Challenger 1.5 Post-Columbia 1.6 Current status 2 Table of ALT flights 3 Related media 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] Service

Construction began on the first Orbiter on June 4, 1974. Designated OV-101, it was originally planned to be named Constitution. However, a write-in campaign caused it to be renamed after the Starship Enterprise, featured on the television show Star Trek. In return, the class of starship used in the television show was named Constitution.

The design of OV-101 was not the same as that planned for OV-102, the first flight model; the tail was constructed differently, and it did not have the interfaces to mount OMS pods. A large number of subsystems - ranging from main engines to radar equipment - were not installed on this vehicle, but the capacity to add them in future was retained.

During summer 1976, the orbiter was used for ground vibration tests, allowing engineers to compare data from an actual flight vehicle with theoretical models.

On September 17, 1976, Enterprise was rolled out of Rockwell's plant at Palmdale, California. In keeping with its name, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and most of the cast of the original series of Star Trek (minus William Shatner, Majel Barrett, and Grace Lee Whitney), were on hand at the dedication ceremony, and the show's theme music was played. Star Trek: The Motion Picture contains a scene wherein former captain Willard Decker shows V'ger paintings of former spaceships that were named "Enterprise." The original space shuttle is one of the spaceships depicted.

[edit] Approach and landing tests

On January 31, 1977, it was taken by road to Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, to begin operational testing.

While at NASA Dryden, Enterprise was used by NASA for a variety of ground and flight tests intended to validate aspects of the shuttle program. The initial nine-month testing period was referred to by the acronym ALT, for "Approach and Landing Test". These tests included a maiden "flight" on February 18, 1977 atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to measure structural loads and ground handling and braking characteristics of the mated system. Ground tests of all orbiter subsystems were carried out to verify functionality prior to atmospheric flight.

The mated Enterprise/SCA combination was then subjected to five test flights with Enterprise unmanned and unactivated. The purpose of these test flights was to measure the flight characteristics of the mated combination. These tests were followed with three test flights with Enterprise manned in order to test the shuttle flight control systems.

Finally, Enterprise underwent five free flights where the craft separated from the SCA and was landed under astronaut control. These tests verified the flight characteristics of the orbiter design and were carried out under several aerodynamic and weight configurations. See ALT table below for complete list of ALT flight tests.

[edit] Preparation for STS-1

Following the ALT program, Enterprise was ferried between several NASA facilities to configure the craft for vibration testing. In 1979, it was mated with an external tank and solid rocket boosters and tested in a launch configuration at Kennedy Space Center launch pad 39A. In 1985, it was used to test the Air Force shuttle facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base, including a full mating on the SLC-6 launch pad.

[edit] Retirement

With the completion of critical testing, Enterprise was partially disassembled to allow certain components to be reused in other shuttles, then underwent an international tour visiting France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the U.S. states of California, Alabama, and Louisiana. It was also used to fit-check the never-used shuttle launch pad, SLC-6 at Vandenberg AFB, California. Finally, on November 18, 1985, Enterprise was ferried to Washington, D.C., where it became property of the Smithsonian Institution.

[edit] Post-Challenger

After the Challenger disaster, NASA had a choice of which shuttle to use as a replacement. Refitting Enterprise with all of the necessary equipment needed for it to be used in space was considered, but instead it was decided to use spares from the fabrication of Discovery and Atlantis to build Endeavour.

[edit] Post-Columbia

In 2003, after the breakup of Columbia during re-entry, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board removed a fiberglass panel from Enterprise's wing to undergo testing [1]. The test involved firing a piece of foam at high velocity at the panel. While the panel was not broken as a result of the test, the impact was enough to permanently deform a seal. As the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon panel on Columbia was 2.5 times weaker, this strongly suggested that the RCC leading edge would have been shattered. Additional tests on the fiberglass were canceled in order not to risk damaging the test apparatus, and a panel from Discovery was tested to know the effects of the foam on a similarly-aged RCC leading edge. A piece of foam from the external fuel tank broke off and struck the leading edge of Columbia's left wing during launch.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board determined that this impact caused a breach of a Reinforced Carbon-Carbon panel along the leading edge of Columbia's left wing, allowing super-heated gases generated during re-entry to enter the wing and cause structural collapse. This caused Columbia to spin out of control, breaking up with the loss of all crew.

[edit] Current status

Enterprise was at the Smithsonian's hangar at Washington Dulles International Airport before being moved to the newly-built Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles, where it is the centerpiece of the space collection.

[edit] Table of ALT flights

Test flight	Date	Speed	Altitude	Crew	Duration	Comment
Taxi test #1	February 15, 1977	89 mph 143 km/h	taxi	none	taxi	Concrete runway, tailcone on
Taxi test #2	February 15, 1977	140 mph 225 km/h	taxi	none	taxi	Concrete runway, tailcone on
Taxi test #3	February 15, 1977	157 mph 253 km/h	taxi	none	taxi	Concrete runway, tailcone on
Captive-inert flight #1	February 18, 1977	287 mph 462 km/h	16,000 ft 4,877 m	none	2 h 5 min	Tailcone on, landed with 747
Captive-inert flight #2	February 22, 1977	328 mph 528 km/h	22,600 ft 6,888 m	none	3 h 13 min	Tailcone on, landed with 747
Captive-inert flight #3	February 25, 1977	425 mph 684 km/h	26,600 ft 8,108 m	none	2 h 28 min	Tailcone on, landed with 747
Captive-inert flight #4	February 28, 1977	425 mph 684 km	28,565 ft 8,707 m	none	2 h 11 min	Tailcone on, landed with 747
Captive-inert flight #5	March 2, 1977	474 mph 763 km/h	30,000 ft 9,144 m	none	1 h 39 min	Tailcone on, landed with 747
Captive-active flight #1	June 18, 1977	208 mph 335 km/h	14,970 ft 4,563 m	Fred Haise, Gordon Fullerton	55 min 46 s	Tailcone on, landed with 747
Captive-active flight #2	June 28, 1977	310 mph 499 km/h	22,030 ft 6,715 m	Joe Engle, Richard Truly	62 min 0 s	Tailcone on, landed with 747
Captive-active flight #3	July 26, 1977	311 mph 501 km/h	30,292 ft 9,233 m	Fred Haise, Gordon Fullerton	59 min 53 s	Tailcone on, landed with 747
Free flight #1	August 12, 1977	310 mph 499 km/h	24,100 ft 7,346 m	Fred Haise, Gordon Fullerton	5 min 21 s	Tailcone on, lakebed landing
Free flight #2	September 13, 1977	310 mph 499 km/h	26,000 ft 7,925 m	Joe Engle, Richard Truly	5 min 28 s	Tailcone on, lakebed landing
Free flight #3	September 23, 1977	290 mph 467 km/h	24,700 ft 7,529 m	Fred Haise, Gordon Fullerton	5 min 34 s	Tailcone on, lakebed landing
Free flight #4	October 12, 1977	278 mph 447 km/h	22,400 ft 6,828 m	Joe Engle, Richard Truly	2 min 34 s	Tailcone off, lakebed landing
Free flight #5	October 26, 1977	283 mph 456 km/h	19,000 ft 5,791 m	Fred Haise, Gordon Fullerton	2 min 1 s	Tailcone off, runway landing

• Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (747) crew for all tests:

• Fitzhugh L. Fulton, Jr., Pilot
• Thomas C. McMurtry, Pilot
• Louis E. Guidry, Jr., Flight Engineer
• Victor W. Horton, Flight Engineer

[edit] Related media

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Space Shuttle Enterprise

• List of space shuttle missions
• List of space shuttle crews

[edit] External links

• Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise (OV-101)

v • d • e  Space Shuttle Program
	Main Articles: Space Shuttle program | Space Shuttle
	Components: Orbiter | SRB | External Tank | SSME | OMS | Crawler Transporter
	Orbiters: Enterprise | Columbia | Challenger | Discovery | Atlantis | Endeavour
	Launch Sites: Kennedy Space Center LC-39 | Vandenberg Air Force Base SLC-6
	Developments: Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicle | Shuttle-C | Ares I | Ares V
	Test Articles: Pathfinder
	Misc: Missions | Cancelled Missions | Decision | Crews | Abort modes | In Fiction

v • d • e  Space Shuttles
	US Space Shuttle program Enterprise (atmospheric tests) Pathfinder (ground facilities tests) Columbia (destroyed 2003) Challenger (destroyed 1986) Discovery (active) Atlantis (active) Endeavour (active)	Soviet Buran program OK-GLI (BST-02) (aerotester) Buran (retired, destroyed 2002) Ptichka (95–97% completed, unused) 2.01 (incomplete) 2.02 (partially dismantled) 2.03 (dismantled)