As part of its work, Discovery has spent days in space, orbited the Earth 5, times and travelled an impressive , , miles. One of the first Discovery ships was a vessel in the early s, which was commandeered by Henry Hudson to explore Hudson Bay and search for a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Testing the waters, Discovery was launched for the first time in August 30, It launched three communication satellites and tested an experimental solar array wing, under the leadership of astronaut Henry W. Read more: The future of Nasa: what's next for the agency, its robots and its plans to get to Mars. The shuttle has a special place in Nasa history as it was the rocket chosen to carry the Hubble Space Telescope into space during mission STS in April In order to launch Hubble into an orbit that guaranteed longevity, Discovery soared to a record altitude of km.
Once your set is finished and ready to wow, you can display your creation with pride using the stands and information plaques that the set comes with.
The sheer accuracy of the model makes recreating this magnificent mission a great way to take off into the world of space travel from the comfort of your own home. The set comes with functional landing gear and a set of payload bay doors that, thanks to gravity, open and close with a joyously satisfying sound. These small details also add to making this such a satisfying feat of LEGO mindfulness. From the Ku-band antenna for communications in the payload bay, cameras for the crew to monitor operations within the bay, and the Canadarm ready to grapple and release the brick-built Hubble Space Telescope to carry out its mission.
The same thoughtful design details have been applied to the Hubble, with its hinged mirror housing and new gold foil solar arrays as well as a realistic, reflective, metallic silver design. The telescope can also be stowed in the payload bay ready to be connected to the Canadarm for deployment, just as it was on mission STS When designing the model, Milan Madge said,.
In the real vehicle, every inch of space is used in ingenious ways. Add functional landing gear and you have a real puzzle. It was the shuttle's computers that initiated the abort, which happened when a fuel valve on Engine 3 didn't open as planned.
Minutes later, a hydrogen fire broke out and the pad's fire suppression system kicked in. According to crew member Mike Mullane in his memoirs Riding Rockets , the crew was a little befuddled as they watched water splashing across the windows. They weren't sure if it was best to leave, or to escape the shuttle. After some discussions, NASA and the crew decided to stay put.
We could have thrown open the hatch and run into a fire. When it was safe to do so, the crew exited and got soaked by water from the fire suppression system. But the important thing was that they were okay. This was the first abort of the shuttle program; all told, five shuttle missions were called off just moments before launch, then sent into space at a later date.
Another mission, STSF , had an early cutoff in Challenger's center engine about five minutes, 45 seconds into the launch. It went into orbit successfully. NASA had an aggressive flight schedule for the shuttle in the early days of its program. The young Discovery flew two times in and four times in , sending several satellites into space. Additionally, Discovery flew the first of a series of shuttle missions for the Department of Defense. All of this began to change after the Challenger explosion of Satellite launches gradually shifted to one-use unmanned rockets for safety and cost considerations.
The shuttle's mandate changed to being focused on science and station-building activities. However, there still was a backlog of satellites to carry up through the shuttle.
The shuttle lofted a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite into space to provide enhanced communication between the ground and the shuttle.
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