Abstract
Even before the Apollo program with its moonlandings reached its conclusion, the American aerospace community set about designing and building the next space program. Although with trips only in low Earth orbit it looked less exciting than the lunar missions, the new spaceship was to be something completely different from its predecessors.
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- 1.
For an aerospace structure, these maximum loads are defined as ultimate or limit loads.
- 2.
A body-bending load tends to change the radius of a curvature of the body.
- 3.
Normally astronauts spacewalk in pairs. During STS−49 in May 1992, Endeavour’s maiden voyage, a contingency situation resulted in three crew members going outside to retrieve an Intelsat communications satellite.
- 4.
Generally speaking, for all sections of the Orbiter’s wing these tubular struts acted as ribs to maintain the airfoil of the wing, whereas in a conventional aircraft the ribs are holed webs. The tubular strut configuration was chosen to save weight.
- 5.
The point of resolution was a software-defined point about which all translations and rotations occurred. For an unloaded arm this corresponded with the tip of the end effector, but for a loaded arm it was usually defined to be at or close to the geometric center of the payload.
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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Sivolella, D. (2014). A skeleton for the Orbiter: structure and mechanisms. In: To Orbit and Back Again. Springer Praxis Books. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0983-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0983-0_2
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-0982-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-0983-0
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