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Space Shuttle Pathfinder
The Space Shuttle ''Pathfinder'' (unofficial Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-098) is a Space Shuttle test simulator made of steel and wood. Constructed by NASA in 1977 as an unnamed facilities test article, it was purchased in the early 1980s by the America-Japan Society, Inc. which had it refurbished, named it, and placed it on display in the Great Space Shuttle Exhibition in Tokyo. The mockup was later returned to the United States and placed on permanent display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in May 1988. Activities Originally unnamed, the simulator was built at the Marshall Space Flight Center in 1977 for use in activities such as checking roadway clearances, crane capabilities and fits within structures. It was later shipped by barge to the Kennedy Space Center and was used for ground crew testing in the Vehicle Assembly Building, Orbiter Processing Facility, and Shuttle Landing Facility. ''Pathfinder'' is approximately the same size, shape and ...
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Shuttle Landing Facility
The Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) also known as Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) is an airport located on Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is a part of the Kennedy Space Center and was used by Space Shuttle for landing until July 2011. It was also used for takeoffs and landings for NASA training jets such as the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and for civilian aircraft. Starting in 2015, Space Florida manages and operates the facility under a 30-year lease from NASA. In addition to ongoing use by NASA, private companies have been utilizing the SLF since the 2011 end of the Space Shuttle program. Facilities The Shuttle Landing Facility covers and has a single runway, 15/33. It is one of the longest runways in the world, at , and is wide. (Despite its length, astronaut Jack R. Lousma stated that he would have preferred the runway to be "half as wide and twice as long") Additionally, the SLF has of paved overruns at each end. The Mate-Demate Dev ...
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MPTA-ET
The Main Propulsion Test Article (MPTA-098) was built by Rockwell International as a testbed for the definitive propulsion and fuel delivery systems for the U.S. Space Shuttle Program. Description Never intended for actual spaceflight, the MPTA consisted of the internal structure of a Space Shuttle orbiter aft-fuselage, a truss structure that simulated the basic structure and shape of an orbiter mid-fuselage and a complete Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) assembly, including all main propulsion system plumbing and the associated electrical systems. Later, the very different STA (Structural Test Article) was converted into a flightworthy orbiter, re-designated OV-099, and christened ''Challenger''. Rockwell and NASA thus retroactively re-designated the MPTA as MPTA-098, though it was never christened with a name. A Space Shuttle External Tank, commonly referred to as MPTA-ET, was built to be used in conjunction with MPTA-098 for structural tests of the Space Shuttle Main Engi ...
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Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspapers and broadcasters. The AP has earned 56 Pulitzer Prizes, including 34 for photography, since the award was established in 1917. It is also known for publishing the widely used ''AP Stylebook''. By 2016, news collected by the AP was published and republished by more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters, English, Spanish, and Arabic. The AP operates 248 news bureaus in 99 countries. It also operates the AP Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributing members of the cooperative. As part of their cooperative agreement with the AP ...
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Space Shuttle Inspiration
Space Shuttle ''Inspiration'' is a full-scale Space Shuttle mockup built in 1972 by North American Rockwell. The plastic and wood model was made to promote the company's bid to construct the Space Shuttle fleet. History The Space Shuttle Orbiter mockup was constructed by North American Rockwell in 1972. It was shown to NASA and Congress to win approval for the Space Shuttle program. The mockup is approximately the same size and shape as an actual Orbiter. It was also used to design cable harnesses for production shuttle Orbiters and to test-fit flight hardware. The mockup was abandoned in place by NASA, so the owners of the property placed it on temporary display at the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, California, in July 2012. Refurbishment and naming After sitting in storage for many years, in 2012, the owners decided to refurbish ''Inspiration''. A 2009 grant proposal estimated the cost of refurbishment and housing at $1,880,000, with about half going to rest ...
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Space Shuttle Independence
Space Shuttle ''Independence'', formerly known as ''Explorer'', is a full-scale, high-fidelity replica of the Space Shuttle. It was built by Guard-Lee in Apopka, Florida, installed at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in 1993, and moved to Space Center Houston in 2012. It was built using schematics, blueprints and archival documents provided by NASA and by shuttle contractors such as Rockwell International. While many of the features on the replica are simulated, some parts, including the landing gear's Michelin tires, have been used in the Space Shuttle program. The model is long, high, has a wingspan, and weighs . Kennedy Space Center ''Independence'', then known as ''Explorer'', was displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex atop cement pilings and secured with steel cabling. Visitor access was provided by a gantry-style tower with ramps and an elevator for accessibility. Inside, visitors could view a mock-up payload, a mannequin wearing an early model of the ...
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Space Shuttle America
''Space Shuttle America'' (also known as ''Space Shuttle America - The Next Century'') was a motion simulator ride at the Six Flags Great America theme park in Gurnee, Illinois, that opened in 1994. The ride's main feature was a full-scale replica of an American Space Shuttle orbiter. It closed permanently after the 2007 season and was removed on December 5, 2009. Storyline The storyline of the ride was that riders have boarded a new Space Shuttle called ''America'', which is capable of transporting passengers to the fictional Armstrong City using the LRVM (Lunar Run Velocity Management) Warp. Armstrong City is located a short distance from the site of the first manned moon landing. Guests entered a building that has a small replica of Launch Control at Cape Canaveral. Several TV screens display fake NASA TV recordings about the shuttle and security cam views of the fictional facility that attendees are supposedly touring. Shortly before boarding, there is a notice about a ...
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National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government within the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all List of areas in the United States National Park System, national parks, most National monument (United States), national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properties with various title designations. The United States Congress, U.S. Congress created the agency on August 25, 1916, through the National Park Service Organic Act. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., within the main headquarters of the Department of the Interior. The NPS employs approximately 20,000 people in 423 individual units covering over 85 million acres in List of states and territories of the United States, all 50 states, the Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, and Territories of the United States, US territ ...
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Pathfinder Frame Starboard Forward
Pathfinder may refer to: Businesses * Pathfinder Energy Services, a division of Smith International * Pathfinder Press, a publisher of socialist literature Computing and information science * Path Finder, a Macintosh file browser * Pathfinder (website) * Pathfinder networks, a psychometric scaling method * Java Pathfinder, a software testing tool * Pathfinder (library science), a subject bibliography often offered on library websites Entertainment Novels * ''The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea'', an 1840 novel by James Fenimore Cooper * ''Pathfinders'' (novel), a 1944 novel by Cecil Lewis * ''Pathfinder'' (novel), a 2010 novel by Orson Scott Card * ''TodHunter Moon, Book One: PathFinder'', a 2014 novel by Angie Sage Film and television * ''The Pathfinder'' (1952 film), based on the book by James Fenimore Cooper * ''Pathfinder'' (1987 film), a Norwegian Oscar-nominated film * ''The Pathfinder'' (1996 film), a TV movie based on the book by James Fenimore Cooper * ''Pathfinder ...
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Space Shuttle Program
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official name, Space Transportation System (STS), was taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips. The Space Shuttle—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank—carried up to eight astronauts and up to of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would reenter the Earth's atmosphere and land like a glider at either 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 r ...
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Michoud Assembly Facility
The Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) is an manufacturing complex owned by NASA in New Orleans East, a district within New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States. Organizationally it is part of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and is currently a multi-tenant complex to allow commercial and government contractors, as well as government agencies, to use the site. MAF is one of the largest manufacturing plants in the world with 43 environmentally controlled acres——under one roof, and it employs more than 4,200 people. From September 1961 to the end of the Apollo program in December 1972 the site was utilized by Chrysler Corporation to build the first stages of the Saturn I and Saturn IB, later joined by Boeing Corporation to build the first stage of the Saturn V rockets. From September 5, 1973, to September 20, 2010, the factory was used for the construction of the Space Shuttle's external fuel tanks by Martin Marietta Corporation. In 2012, the parts of the fa ...
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Stennis Space Center
The John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is a NASA rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi, United States, on the banks of the Pearl River at the Mississippi–Louisiana border. , it is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. There are over 50 local, state, national, international, private, and public companies and agencies using SSC for their rocket testing facilities. History The initial requirements for NASA's proposed rocket testing facility required the site to be located between the rockets' manufacturing facility at Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, and the launch facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Also, the site required barge access as the rocket motors to be tested for Apollo were too large for overland transport. Additionally, the Apollo motors were too loud to be tested at Marshall Space Flight Center's existing test stands near Huntsville, Alabama. A more isolated site was needed. After an exhaustive si ...
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MPTA-098
The Main Propulsion Test Article (MPTA-098) was built by Rockwell International as a testbed for the definitive propulsion and fuel delivery systems for the U.S. Space Shuttle Program. Description Never intended for actual spaceflight, the MPTA consisted of the internal structure of a Space Shuttle orbiter aft-fuselage, a truss structure that simulated the basic structure and shape of an orbiter mid-fuselage and a complete Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) assembly, including all main propulsion system plumbing and the associated electrical systems. Later, the very different STA (Structural Test Article) was converted into a flightworthy orbiter, re-designated OV-099, and christened ''Challenger''. Rockwell and NASA thus retroactively re-designated the MPTA as MPTA-098, though it was never christened with a name. A Space Shuttle External Tank, commonly referred to as MPTA-ET, was built to be used in conjunction with MPTA-098 for structural tests of the Space Shuttle Main Engi ...
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