The Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) was a facility at
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in
Houston, Texas
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
, US.
Facility
It was the only facility in the Space Shuttle Program where actual orbiter hardware and flight software can be integrated and tested in a simulated flight environment. It supported the entire
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, 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. ...
program to perform integrated verification tests. It also contained Firing Room Launch Equipment identical to that used at KSC. Thus, complete ground verifications, as well as countdown and abort operations, could be tested and simulated.
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. While 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.
NASA personnel who have been assigned to SAIL testing include
Charlie Bolden (former
NASA Administrator
The administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the highest-ranking official of NASA, the national List of space agencies, space agency of the United States. The administrator is NASA's chief decision maker, responsible ...
),
Michael Coats
Michael Lloyd Coats (born January 16, 1946) is a former NASA astronaut (three spaceflights), raised in Riverside, California. From December 2005 to December 2012, he served as Director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Early life an ...
(former Director at JSC NASA),
Brewster Shaw (Boeing Vice President of Space Exploration Division) and
Al Crews (selected as an astronaut for the
X-20 Dyna-Soar). The first SAIL commander was James E. Westom of Rockwell International, retired Major USAF. He flew the Approach and Landing phase in SAIL before Space Shuttle Enterprise was launched off the top of the NASA C-747 airplane to prove it could fly on its own in the atmosphere.
The SAIL facility will be renovated and recreated as a stop on the
Space Center Houston
Space Center Houston is a science museum that serves as the official visitor center of NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. It was designated a Smithsonian Affiliate museum in 2014. The organization is owned by NASA, and operated unde ...
Level 9 Tour, a separate add-on to the visitor center admission in which tourists are given entrance to buildings normally off limits to visitors.
References
External links
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{{Use American English, date=January 2014
Avionics Integration Laboratory
Johnson Space Center