I was wondering how you steer the space shuttle when gliding in for a landing. I’ve heard that there are a series of S turns that it makes as it’s approaching to burn off some speed. I don’t see any obvious movable surfaces. How do you steer the thing?
The shuttles have airplane like control surfaces that were used after entering the atmosphere for landing.
“At an altitude of approximately 30 miles, the orbiter makes a series of maneuvers and S-turns to slow its speed. At 9.5 miles in altitude and at a speed of Mach 1, the orbiter can be steered using its rudder. The on-board computers fly the orbiter until it goes subsonic (slower than the speed of sound: Mach 1). This happens about 4 minutes before landing. At this time the commander takes manual control of the orbiter and flies a wide arc approach. At 7.5 miles from the runway, the orbiter is flying about 424 miles per hour at an altitude of 13,365 feet. About 2 miles from the runway, the orbiter is flying at nearly 360 miles per hour on a glide slope of 22 degrees.”
Well that makes sense. For some reason I never noticed them. I guess the discontinuities at the ailerons are far enough back that the tiles don’t overheat from friction, right?
[del]Being on the trailing edge of a wing-shaped … um, wing, I would expect they are very much out of harm’s way, reentry-friction-wise.[/del]
I’m just going to go ahead and cross that WAG out. Today I’m one of those “LOL I have no idea what I’m talking about” dogs.
Elevons and rudder I think. Elevons are common on delta wing aircraft and combine the function of elevators and ailerons.
Remember also that reentry heating is mostly due to ram air compression. Effective reentry shapes cause a blunt, wide shockwave that spreads out quickly away from the craft, and the shock wave is where the most intense heat is. Hence the shuttle had tiles and heat shield on leading surfaces that were at the apex of the shockwave and lesser degrees of heat protection on other areas.
The edges of the tops of the elevons are surfaced with low temperature tiles , while the bottom of the elevons are surfaced with the high temperature tiles, just like the rest of the bottom of the shuttle. Note that the Leading edges of the wings and the tip of the nose are surfaced with Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) heat shield which has an even higher heat resistance than the tile.
The elevons are actually designed to deal with significant heating and were even used for emergency corrections during reentry in the Columbia disaster.
Space Shuttle thermal protection system
I think it’s worth taking the time to contrast this against an airliner, because I don’t think most people understand how extreme it really is. Typically, 7 miles from the runway, an airliner would be at an altitude of 1500 feet (vs 13,000), and a speed of maybe 210 mph (vs 420). At a distance of two miles, an airliner would typically be moving around 140 mph (vs 360!) and descending on a three degree glide slope (vs TWENTY-TWO!!).
From my minimal experience of such things, I suspect that from on board this would feel to the inexperienced like you were heading straight freakin’ down. It would be a scary ride.
It’ s also possible to use the RCS (reaction control system) which are smaller menuvering rockets if the conventional airplane surfaces are not enough. IIRC This happened automatically when the Columbia’s wing was compromised in a attempt to stabilize flight after the control surfaces couldn’t correct it. Obviously the RCS was not going to help there.
AFAIK this would be a automated process during supersonic gliding.
Given that you’re moving across the ground at a brisk clip, I kinda doubt it. But it’s definitely a steep approach.
For those of you who ski, this site has a list of several famous U.S. ski runs (Pallavicini, KT-22, Alf’s High Rustler) with their average degree of pitch. While 22 degrees isn’t as steep as many of those, it’s comparable to the lower end of the list. In short, I completely agree with Princhester.
Isn’t the Shuttle also pitched up as well, relative to the horizon, that deep in the glide? If so, the slope between your eyes and your path is going to be even steeper.
On a related note, they had a shuttle landing simulator at the Johnson Space Center visitor center in Houston. I tried to land three or four times, and crashed every time. My uncle is a licensed commercial pilot, and was the only one in our group who managed a safe landing, after crashing several times himself. 
I gather that landing the shuttle was harder than it looked on TV.
As my uncle noted, you get one chance to land, with no go-arounds. He also said that it seemed to fly like a brick.
Poking around the internet, I also came across some info regarding the Shuttle Training Aircraft, which is “a training vehicle that duplicates the Space Shuttle’s approach profile and handling qualities, allowing Space Shuttle pilots to simulate Shuttle landings under controlled conditions before attempting the task on board the orbiter.”
The article also states:
Disappointed this wasn’t a NEED ANSWER FAST!! question.
Here’s how they duplicate the handling qualities:
:eek:
Nitpick: The altitude of an airliner at 7 miles would be about 2100 feet. A 3° slope approximates to 300 feet per nautical mile.
You can get a space shuttle landing sim for the iPhone and iPad. It’s good fun.
Nitpick: I was figuring on a typical 4-5 mile glideslope intercept; I threw 1500’ out there to represent a minimum vectoring altitude. That said, you are correct, sir. 
Ah ok, fair enough.
Psh. You want to talk about difficult piloting? Imagine the guys who fly this. That’s the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. It is the (modified) 747 that hauls the orbiter back to Florida after it lands in California. The pilot is quite literally flying a 747 with another plane, wings and all, strapped to the top. Apparently, this presents something of a challenge.
I can see how it must be. I’ve always wondered if the Shuttle, or any other sort of “piggybacked” aircraft contributes to the overall lift. But whether it does or not, the pilot of the shuttle carrier doesn’t have access to the Shuttle’s control surfaces, so it must make it more sluggish when banking or pitching or whatever.