The NASA recovery ships are two ships, the and the , that were tasked with retrieving spent Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) following the launch of

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

missions. Although owned by NASA, the ships were operated by Space Flight Operations contractor

United Space Alliance :''In this article, USA refers to the United Space Alliance, not the United States.'' United Space Alliance (USA) was a spaceflight operations company. USA was a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company ...

. Following the end of the Space Shuttle program, and therefore booster recovery, NASA transferred both vessels to the Department of Transportation.

Design and construction

Both ships were built at

Atlantic Marine Shipyard Atlantic Marine was an American shipbuilding and construction company. It operated two shipyards, one in Mobile, Alabama and the original corporate location, a smaller one in Jacksonville, Florida where its headquarters was located. It was acqu ...

Fort George Island A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

, and delivered in January 1981 to their original owner, United Technologies Inc. They are propelled by two main engines providing a total of 2,900 horsepower (2.2 MW), and are capable of towing each. Two auxiliary engines with jacuzzi-like jets (similar to those found in Naval riverine craft) as well as the extra caution taken by the crew allow the ships to coast up the

Banana River The Banana River is a lagoon that lies between Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida in the United States. It is part of the Indian River Lagoon system, and connects at its south end to the Indian River; it is the onl ...

without harming the significant

manatee Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus ''Trichechus'') are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living speci ...

population.Welcome Aboard Liberty Star!
/ref> All gear on deck, including the deck crane used to lift the booster

frustum In geometry, a (from the Latin for "morsel"; plural: ''frusta'' or ''frustums'') is the portion of a solid (normally a pyramid or a cone) that lies between two parallel planes cutting this solid. In the case of a pyramid, the base faces are ...

on deck, compressors for removing seawater from the boosters, winches and reels, bolt on and off to allow the vessels to be used for purposes other than booster recovery such as towing the Pegasus barge from

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 current ...

. Communications equipment includes a Kongsberg dynamic position system and joy stick control, X-band and S-band radars for tracking ship traffic and the falling SRBs, global positioning system, handheld VHF radios and GPS units, digital video and recording systems, voice and data satellite communication capability, VHF automatic direction finding, high-frequency single-side band radios, electronic chart plotters, night vision and Sea Area-3 Global Maritime Distress Safety System consoles. To satisfy NASA's need for more observational data during shuttle launches, a

Weibel Scientific Weibel Scientific is a Danish engineering company that has specialised in the design and manufacture of doppler radar systems. It has been in operation since 1936, originally being named ''M. P. Weibel'' and having worked as an electronics busin ...

Continuous Pulse Doppler X-band radar was mounted on MV ''Liberty Star'' to provide velocity and motion information about the shuttle and any debris during launch.

Activities

Aside from their usual missions of retrieving the Space Shuttle SRBs, the ''Liberty Star'' and ''Freedom Star'' have occasionally been used for other purposes. Starting in 1998, the ships began making use of their downtime between Shuttle launches by towing the Space Shuttle external fuel tanks from their assembly plant at

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

to the

Vehicle Assembly Building The Vehicle Assembly Building (originally the Vertical Assembly Building), or VAB, is a large building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), designed to assemble large pre-manufactured space vehicle components, such as the massive Saturn V and th ...

at the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 196 ...

in Florida. The ships performed similar missions when the Ares 1-X rocket was tested.NASA Facts, recovery ships
To withstand the towing burden, ''Liberty Star'' and ''Freedom Star'' underwent deck-strengthening enhancements. The

stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...

s were strengthened at critical points, new bulwark fairings were added, and an H-bitt was installed through which cabling is threaded to keep it centered during towing operations. A

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...

towing winch was also installed, referred to as a double-drum waterfall winch, holding 2,000 feet or more of wire rope on each drum. One drum supports booster retrievals while the other is devoted to external tank towing. The ships have also occasionally been used to support scientific research operations including research for the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditi ...

and several universities. The ships are normally docked alongside each other next to the Solid Rocket Booster processing facility at the

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the stat ...

in Florida.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nasa Recovery Ship Merchant ships of the United States Space Shuttle program NASA vehicles