Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory

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Astronaut Claude Nicollier in the SAIL Shuttle cockpit simulator, 1983
Astronaut Claude Nicollier in the SAIL Shuttle cockpit simulator, 1983

The Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory is a facility at Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

It is used for full scale integrated flight hardware and software verification testing for all Space Shuttle flights.

The testing process is extensive and rigorous; the software on the Shuttle is often considered to be among the most bug-free of operational systems.

The laboratory contains a complete avionics mock-up of a Shuttle, designated OV-095. Whilst only a skeleton of an orbiter, the electronics are identical in position and type to those used on the Shuttle; it is a sufficiently faithful replica that crews sometimes prefer to use it to train on, rather than the training simulators.


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Space Shuttles
American US Space Shuttle program   Soviet Soviet Buran program
  • OK-GLI (Buran Analog BST-02, aerotester)
  • Buran (Shuttle 1.01, destroyed 2002)
  • Ptichka (Shuttle 1.02, 95–97% completed)
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