The Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), also known as Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) , is an

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

located on

Merritt Island Merritt Island is a peninsula, commonly referred to as an island, in Brevard County, Florida, United States, located on the eastern Florida coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the name of an unincorporated town in the central and sout ...

in Brevard County,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It is a part of 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 NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

and was used by

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. ...

for landing until July 2011. It was also used for takeoffs and landings for NASA training jets such as the

Shuttle Carrier Aircraft The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) are two extensively modified Boeing 747 airliners that NASA used to transport Space Shuttle orbiters. One (N905NA) is a 747-100 model, while the other (N911NA) is a short-range 747-100SR. Both are now retired. ...

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 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 ...

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 Device The Mate-Demate Device was a specialized gantry crane designed to lift a Space Shuttle orbiter onto and off the back of a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA). Two Mate-Demate Devices were built, one at the Armstrong Flight Research Center in Californi ...

(MDD), for use when the Shuttle was transported by the

, was located just off the southern end of the runway. The runway is designated runway 15, or 33, depending on the direction of use. The runway surface consists of an extremely high-

friction Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. Types of friction include dry, fluid, lubricated, skin, and internal -- an incomplete list. The study of t ...

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

strip designed to maximize the braking ability of the

at its high landing speed, with a paving thickness of at the center. It uses a grooved design to provide drainage and further increase the coefficient of friction. The original groove design was found to actually provide too much friction for the rubber used in the Shuttle's tires, causing failures during several landings. This issue was resolved by grinding down the pavement, reducing the depth of the grooves significantly. A local nickname for the runway is the "gator tanning facility", as some of the 4,000 alligators living at Kennedy Space Center regularly bask in the sunlight on the runway. The landing facility is managed by contractor EG&G, which provides air traffic control services, as well as managing potential hazards to landing aircraft, such as bird life. The Bird Team kept the facility clear of both local and migratory birds during Shuttle landings using

pyrotechnic Pyrotechnics is the science and craft of creating fireworks, but also includes safety matches, oxygen candles, explosive bolts (and other fasteners), parts of automotive airbags, as well as gas-pressure blasting in mining, quarrying, and demol ...

s, blank rounds fired from

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, peppergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small ...

s and a series of 25

propane Propane () is a three-carbon chain alkane with the molecular formula . It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure, but becomes liquid when compressed for transportation and storage. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum ref ...

cannons arranged around the facility.

History and usage

Space Shuttle

'' Columbia'' was the first Shuttle to arrive at the SLF via the

on March 24, 1979. The runway was first used to land a Space Shuttle on February 11, 1984, when '' Challenger's ''

STS-41-B STS-41-B was NASA's tenth Space Shuttle mission and the fourth flight of the . It launched on February 3, 1984 and landed on February 11, 1984, after deploying two communications satellites. It was also notable for including the first untethere ...

mission returned to Earth. This also marked the first landing of a spacecraft at its launch site. Prior to this, all Shuttle landings were performed at

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, California, Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino County and a souther ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

(with the exception of

STS-3 STS-3 was NASA's third Space Shuttle mission, and was the third mission for the Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. It launched on March 22, 1982, and landed eight days later on March 30, 1982. The mission, crewed by Jack R. Lousma and C. Gordon Fu ...

, which landed at

White Sands Space Harbor White Sands Space Harbor (WSSH) is a spaceport in New Mexico that was formerly used as a Space Shuttle runway, a test site for rocket research, and the primary training area used by NASA for Space Shuttle pilots practicing approaches and landin ...

) while the landing facility continued testing and Shuttle crews developed landing skills at White Sands and Edwards, where the margin for error is much greater than SLF and its water hazards. On September 22, 1993, ''

Discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

'' was the first Space Shuttle to land at night at the SLF on

STS-51 STS-51 was a NASA Space Shuttle Space Shuttle Discovery, ''Discovery'' mission that launched the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) in September 1993. Discovery's 17th flight also featured the deployment and retrieval of the S ...

. A total of 78 Space Shuttle missions landed at the SLF. The final landing of a Space Shuttle occurred on July 21, 2011, by ''

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

'' for

STS-135 STS-135 ( ISS assembly flight ULF7) was the 135th and final mission of the American Space Shuttle program. It used the orbiter '' Atlantis'' and hardware originally processed for the STS-335 contingency mission, which was not flown. STS-135 ...

. ''Discovery'' and '' Endeavour'' took off from the SLF on top of the

for museums in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

Boeing X-37B

In January 2014 it was announced that Boeing would lease the

Orbiter Processing Facility Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) is a class of hangars where U.S. Space Shuttle orbiters underwent maintenance between flights. They are located west of the Vehicle Assembly Building, where the orbiter was mated with its external tank and Space ...

at Kennedy Space Center to enable the U.S. Air Force to efficiently land, recover, refurbish, and re-launch the X-37B uncrewed spacecraft. In October 2014, NASA signed agreement for the use of the facility, and Boeing upgraded the OPF-1 for the X-37B program. The X-37B ( OTV-4 mission) first used

's Shuttle Landing Facility Runway 15 on May 7, 2017 at 11:47 UTC. Subsequently OTV-5 and 6 mission used Shuttle Landing Facility Runway 33 for landing.

Project Morpheus testing

In 2012, NASA's Johnson Space Center's Project Morpheus's first vehicle arrived at KSC. Prior to arrival at KSC and throughout the project, Morpheus vehicle tests were performed at other NASA centers; KSC was the site for advanced testing. Multiple tests, including free flight, were performed at the SLF in 2013–2014. Multiple vehicles and iterations of the vehicles were tested, due to upgrades and damages during this experimental test program. During the August 9, 2012, test at the SLF, a vehicle exploded; no one was injured.

Commercial use

The SLF has also been used by commercial users. Zero Gravity Corporation, which offers flights where passengers experience brief periods of microgravity, has operated from the SLF, as have record-setting attempts by the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. The SLF has been the site of high performance automobile testing and speed record attempts. In 2010,

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

teams used the facility for vehicle testing. In 2012, Performance Power's Johnny Bohmer drove his Ford GT modified test car at the SLF, setting the ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

'' mark for 'Fastest standing mile – car' with a record , which still stands as of March 2023. Bohmer impressed the fact that the partnership agreement with NASA and the SLF to test the technology and designs and collect engineering data meant that " NASA allowing us access to a one-of-a-kind facility, we are given the opportunity to explore these technologies and share their benefits." In 2014, in an attempt at an unofficial production car speed record at the SLF, a Hennessey Venom GT recorded a top speed of . In 2021, in a similar attempt at the SLF, the SSC Tuatara recorded a one-way speed of and a two-way average of . In 2019, the

Gulfstream G650ER The Gulfstream G650, G700, and G800 are large business jets produced by the American company Gulfstream Aerospace.

of the multinational One More Orbit flight mission recorded the fastest circumnavigation of the Earth via the north and south poles of 46 h 40 min 22 s. The Shuttle Landing Facility served as launch and landing site for the world speed record, certified by the

and the World Air Sports Federation

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The World Air Sports Federation (; FAI) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintains worl ...

Gallery

File:SLF in 1999.png, Aerial view of Shuttle Landing Facility in 1999 File:ShuttleLandingFacilityMateDemate.jpg, The Mate-Demate Device at the Shuttle Landing Facility File:STS-122 landing.jpg, Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'' landing after

STS-122 STS-122 was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS), flown by the . STS-122 marked the 24th shuttle mission to the ISS, and the 121st Space Shuttle flight overall. The mission was also referred to as ISS-1E by the I ...

, 2008 File:X-37B OTV4 landed at Kennedy Space Center (170507-O-FH989-001).jpg, X-37B stationary after OTV-4, 2017

References

External links

Shuttle Landing Facility
- NASA.gov fact sheet
Space Shuttle Era: Landing Sites
- NASA video on YouTube {{Florida airports Airports in Brevard County, Florida Space Shuttle program Kennedy Space Center Buildings and structures in Merritt Island, Florida Articles containing video clips Space Shuttle Emergency Landing Sites