Space Shuttle Thermal Protection System
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Space Shuttle Thermal Protection System
The Space Shuttle thermal protection system (TPS) is the barrier that protected the Space Shuttle Orbiter during the searing heat of atmospheric reentry. A secondary goal was to protect from the heat and cold of space while in orbit. Materials The TPS covered essentially the entire orbiter surface, and consisted of seven different materials in varying locations based on amount of required heat protection: * Reinforced carbon–carbon (RCC), used in the nose cap, the chin area between the nose cap and nose landing gear doors, the arrowhead aft of the nose landing gear door, and the wing leading edges. Used where reentry temperature exceeded . * High-temperature reusable surface insulation (HRSI) tiles, used on the orbiter underside. Made of coated LI-900 silica ceramics. Used where reentry temperature was below 1,260 °C. * Fibrous refractory composite insulation (FRCI) tiles, used to provide improved strength, durability, resistance to coating cracking and weight reducti ...
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STS-3 Infrared On Reentry
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 Fullerton, involved extensive orbital endurance testing of the ''Columbia'' itself, as well as numerous scientific experiments. STS-3 was the first shuttle launch with an unpainted external tank, and the only mission to land at the White Sands Space Harbor near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The orbiter was forced to land at White Sands due to flooding at its originally planned landing site, Edwards Air Force Base. Crew Commander Jack R. Lousma previously flew as pilot of the second Skylab crew (Skylab 3), staying aboard the space station for 59 days from July to September 1973. Lousma had previously been selected in 1978 as Pilot for STS-2, which was then scheduled as a Skylab reboost mission. When delays in the Shuttle's development prevented ' ...
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Gas Laws
The gas laws were developed at the end of the 18th century, when scientists began to realize that relationships between pressure, volume and temperature of a sample of gas could be obtained which would hold to approximation for all gases. Boyle's law In 1662 Robert Boyle studied the relationship between volume and pressure of a gas of fixed amount at constant temperature. He observed that volume of a given mass of a gas is inversely proportional to its pressure at a constant temperature. Boyle's law, published in 1662, states that, at constant temperature, the product of the pressure and volume of a given mass of an ideal gas in a closed system is always constant. It can be verified experimentally using a pressure gauge and a variable volume container. It can also be derived from the kinetic theory of gases: if a container, with a fixed number of molecules inside, is reduced in volume, more molecules will strike a given area of the sides of the container per unit time, causing ...
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University Of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. The Twin Cities campus comprises locations in Minneapolis and Falcon Heights, Minnesota, Falcon Heights, a suburb of St. Paul, approximately apart. The Twin Cities campus is the oldest and largest in the University of Minnesota system and has the List of United States university campuses by enrollment, ninth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,376 students at the start of the 2021–22 academic year. It is the Flagship#Colleges and universities in the United States, flagship institution of the University of Minnesota System, and is organized into 19 colleges, schools, and other major academic units. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature drafted a ...
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Aluminum
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has a great affinity towards oxygen, and forms a protective layer of oxide on the surface when exposed to air. Aluminium visually resembles silver, both in its color and in its great ability to reflect light. It is soft, non-magnetic and ductile. It has one stable isotope, 27Al; this isotope is very common, making aluminium the twelfth most common element in the Universe. The radioactivity of 26Al is used in radiodating. Chemically, aluminium is a post-transition metal in the boron group; as is common for the group, aluminium forms compounds primarily in the +3 oxidation state. The aluminium cation Al3+ is small and highly charged; as such, it is polarizing, and bonds aluminium forms tend towards covalency. The strong affinity towards ox ...
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Tile
Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or other objects such as tabletops. Alternatively, tile can sometimes refer to similar units made from lightweight materials such as perlite, wood, and mineral wool, typically used for wall and ceiling applications. In another sense, a tile is a construction tile or similar object, such as rectangular counters used in playing games (see tile-based game). The word is derived from the French word ''tuile'', which is, in turn, from the Latin word ''tegula'', meaning a roof tile composed of fired clay. Tiles are often used to form wall and floor coverings, and can range from simple square tiles to complex or mosaics. Tiles are most often made of ceramic, typically glazed for internal uses and unglazed for roofing, but other materials are also c ...
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Silica
Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one of the most complex and most abundant families of materials, existing as a compound of several minerals and as a synthetic product. Notable examples include fused quartz, fumed silica, silica gel, opal and aerogels. It is used in structural materials, microelectronics (as an Insulator (electricity), electrical insulator), and as components in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Structure In the majority of silicates, the silicon atom shows tetrahedral coordination geometry, tetrahedral coordination, with four oxygen atoms surrounding a central Si atomsee 3-D Unit Cell. Thus, SiO2 forms 3-dimensional network solids in which each silicon atom is covalently bonded in a tetrahedral manner to 4 oxygen atoms. In contrast, CO2 is a linear ...
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Shuttle Tile
The original meaning of the word shuttle is the device used in weaving to carry the weft. By reference to the continual to-and-fro motion associated with that, the term was then applied in transportation and then in other spheres. Thus the word may now also refer to: Transport Air transport * Air shuttle, a type of flight which quickly connects nearby destinations * Delta Shuttle, the brand name for Delta Air Lines' air shuttle service * Rossi Shuttle Quik, an Italian ultralight trike design * Shuttle America, a regional airline based in Indianapolis, Indiana * Shuttle by United, a regional airline operated as a subsidiary of United Airlines * Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, modified Boeing 747 airliners used to transport Space Shuttle orbiters * US Airways Shuttle, the brand name for an hourly service offered by US Airways * The call sign for domestic (UK internal) British Airways flights - international flights use Speedbird Land transport Automotive brands * Fit Shuttle, the sta ...
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Space Shuttle Columbia
Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the Columbia Rediviva, first American ship to circumnavigate the upper North American Pacific coast and the Columbia (personification), female personification of the United States, ''Columbia'' was the first of five Space Shuttle orbiters to fly in space, debuting the Space Shuttle, Space Shuttle launch vehicle on STS-1, its maiden flight in April 1981. As only the second full-scale orbiter to be manufactured after the Approach and Landing Tests, Approach and Landing Test vehicle ''Space Shuttle Enterprise, Enterprise'', ''Columbia'' retained unique features indicative of its experimental design compared to later orbiters, such as test instrumentation and distinctive black Chine (aeronautics), chines. In addition to a heavier fuselage and the retention of an internal airlock throughout its lifetime, these made ''Columbia'' the heaviest of the fi ...
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Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster
The Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster was a fatal accident in the United States space program that occurred on February 1, 2003. During the STS-107 mission, Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven astronauts on board. The mission was the second that ended in disaster in the Space Shuttle program after the loss of ''Challenger'' and all seven crew members during ascent in 1986. During the STS-107 launch, a piece of the insulative foam broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the thermal protection system tiles on the orbiter's left wing. Similar foam shedding had occurred during previous Space Shuttle launches, causing damage that ranged from minor to near-catastrophic, but some engineers suspected that the damage to ''Columbia'' was more serious. Before reentry, NASA managers had limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed. When ' ...
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X-20 Dyna-Soar
The Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar ("Dynamic Soarer") was a United States Air Force (USAF) program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including aerial reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintenance, and as a space interceptor to sabotage enemy satellites. The program ran from October 24, 1957, to December 10, 1963, cost US$660 million ($ in current dollars), and was cancelled just after spacecraft construction had begun. Other spacecraft under development at the time, such as Mercury or Vostok, were space capsules with ballistic re-entry profiles that ended in a landing under a parachute. Dyna-Soar was more like an aircraft. It could travel to distant targets at the speed of an intercontinental ballistic missile, was designed to glide to Earth like an aircraft under control of a pilot, and could land at an airfield. Dyna-Soar could also reach Earth orbit, like conventional, manned space capsules. These characteristics mad ...
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Heat Sink
A heat sink (also commonly spelled heatsink) is a passive heat exchanger that transfers the heat generated by an electronic or a mechanical device to a fluid medium, often air or a liquid coolant, where it is dissipated away from the device, thereby allowing regulation of the device's temperature. In computers, heat sinks are used to cool CPUs, GPUs, and some chipsets and RAM modules. Heat sinks are used with high-power semiconductor devices such as power transistors and optoelectronics such as lasers and light-emitting diodes (LEDs), where the heat dissipation ability of the component itself is insufficient to moderate its temperature. A heat sink is designed to maximize its surface area in contact with the cooling medium surrounding it, such as the air. Air velocity, choice of material, protrusion design and surface treatment are factors that affect the performance of a heat sink. Heat sink attachment methods and thermal interface materials also affect the die temperature of ...
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Thermos Bottle
A vacuum flask (also known as a Dewar flask, Dewar bottle or thermos) is an insulating storage vessel that greatly lengthens the time over which its contents remain hotter or cooler than the flask's surroundings. Invented by Sir James Dewar in 1892, the vacuum flask consists of two flasks, placed one within the other and joined at the neck. The gap between the two flasks is partially evacuated of air, creating a near-vacuum which significantly reduces heat transfer by conduction or convection. When used to hold cold liquids, this also virtually eliminates condensation on the outside of the flask. Vacuum flasks are used domestically to keep beverages hot or cold for extended periods of time, and for keeping cooked food hot. They are also used for thermal cooking. Vacuum flasks are also used for many purposes in industry. History The vacuum flask was designed and invented by Scottish scientist Sir James Dewar in 1892 as a result of his research in the field of cryogenics ...
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