Approach and Landing Test project medallion from NASA MFA Office

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This week’s artifact is a medallion and certificate that NASA’s Manned Flight Awareness Office issued to employees and contractors upon the successful conclusion of the space shuttle Approach and Landing Test (ALT) program in 1977.

These tests validated the aerodynamic characteristics of the space shuttle orbiter in a series of flights in conjunction with NASA’s Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA). The initial flights saw the prototype shuttle Enterprise carried on the SCA from takeoff to landing, but in the final five flights, Enterprise was released in mid-air to glide back to the runway at Edwards Air Force Base by herself.

The medallion itself is is 38 mm (1½″) across and made of very light metal; mostly aluminium I think. According to the text on the reverse, it contains metal taken from Enterprise—one source on the Internet states that the material was taken from the left wing.

 
The obverse bears a relief depiction of the ALT patch design. The reverse carries the message:

“Thank you for your contribution toward making the Approach and Landing Tests of the Space Shuttle Orbiter successful. We would like you to have this memento made, in part, of metal taken from the Enterprise.”

It also features facsimiles of the signatures of the four test pilots who flew Enterprise during the tests.

I obtained this medallion in its original plastic packaging and have removed it only to photograph. The relatively rough manufacture of the item is evident here.

The accompanying certificate measures 305 mm × 240 mm (12″ × 9½″) and is printed on card. It’s larger and printed on heavier stock than the Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz certificates in my collection.

It too carries a depiction of the program patch, along with a silhouette of the Enterprise separating from the SCA. As depicted, Enterprise is flying without her tailcone, the configuration used in the final two flights of the program. There’s space for the name of the recipient (which I've blurred out here for their privacy), a message of thanks, and facsimiles of the crew signatures.

The message reads:

“The crews of the Approach and Landing Test Program are pleased to present you with this medallion in appreciation of your contribution to the successful ALT flights of the space shuttle orbiter Enterprise”

At the bottom is a circle the size of the medallion, together with a printed version of the reverse of the medallion, in case the recipient wanted to affix theirs to the certificate itself.


The ALT program was important in ensuring that the space shuttle flew as well in practice as it did on paper, and turned theory into practice. With the program a resounding success, Enterprise moved to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsvile for vibration tests as work continued on preparing the space shuttle for service.

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Copyright information: the medallion and certificate are works of NASA. As works of the United States federal government, they are in the public domain.

Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Test 5 press kit items from DFRC

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This week I present the press kit from space shuttle Enterprise’s fifth and final free flight.

Before the space shuttle commenced operations, NASA validated the airworthiness of the orbiter design in a series of  test flights. The initial flights were “captive” tests, mounted on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), NASA’s modified Boeing 747. From 12 August 1977, the captive flights were followed by five free flights in which Enterprise was released from her mother ship to fly free to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in the Californian desert. 

NASA planned that after these Approach and Landing Tests (ALT), Enterprise would spend a year undergoing vibration tests to verify other aspects of the shuttle design and would then be returned to Rockwell International (today part of Boeing) to be refurbished for orbital flight. This refurbishment never took place (a ground test airframe was refurbished instead to become Challenger) and the only times Enterprise took to the air again was as cargo atop the SCA on her way to various exhibition sites. These destinations included the 1983 Paris Air Show, the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Enterprise’s current home.

Each of the Approach and Landing Tests was a little more ambitious than the one that went before. They began with Enterprise fitted with a streamlined tailcone covering the blunt rear end of the shuttle where the main engines were designed to fit, and with the shuttle descending to land on a dry lake bed with plenty of margin for error. By the fifth flight, of 26 October 1977, Enterprise was flying without the tailcone, with dummy main engines in place, and headed for touchdown on a conventional concrete runway.

It would be the worst landing of the whole shuttle program.

The NASA press release describes the test as planned for that day:

Coming in slightly fast, Enterprise missed the intended touchdown point, landed long, bounced back into the air, then started to roll before the crew brought her back down safely. 

This video shows the landing:

Lag in the responsiveness of the flight control system, together with the generally poor visibility from the Shuttle’s flight deck, had led the crew (commander Fred Haise and pilot Gordon Fullerton) into a series of overcorrections or “pilot-induced oscillation” (PIO). 

As a result, after this test, the flight control system software was modified to counteract the tendency for pilots to overcorrect in this way, at the expense of a little control sensitivity.

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Copyright information: the press kit is a work of NASA. As a work of the US federal government, it is in the public domain. 

Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Test 1 press kit items from DFRC

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Sometimes real-world experience beats anything you can do in simulation. The space shuttle design relied on many bold design decisions, and the mode of the orbiter’s return to earth was one of the boldest of all.

All previous crewed spacecraft had been capsules that parachuted back to earth. However, after dropping out of orbit, the shuttle was to fly as a 100-tonne glider towards a landing on a conventional runway. The descent would be steep, and pilots would have only one chance to put the craft down safely. Although NASA considered fitting the shuttle with retractable jet engines, the agency’s experience with lifting bodies—wingless aircraft with a similarly steep rate of descent when flown as gliders—suggested that the weight of engines could be saved and that a steep glide was a perfectly feasible way to get the orbiter back on the ground. In 1977, NASA set out to prove this with the prototype shuttle, Enterprise in a series of approach and landing tests (ALT) at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in the Californian desert.¹

The first of five flights took place on 12 August 1977. A few items from the press kit issued by NASA for the day set the scene.

This first item is a portrait of the crew assigned to the mission: Fred Haise (commander) and Gordon Fullerton (pilot). This is a standard 8″ × 10″ colour lithograph printed on card with a description on the back:

The second item is a pamphlet that describes the ALT program in general, together with an overview of the Space Shuttle system and the orbiter Enterprise in particular.



As described, the plan for the ALT program was as follows:

1. Load the Enterprise on the back of a specially modified Boeing 747.²
2. Carry it to an altitude of around 25,000 ft (7,600 metres).
3. Release it from the 747.
4. Pilot it back to earth. The shuttle would drop those 25,000 feet in a little over five minutes—around twice the rate of descent of a typical commercial jet flight.

This double-sided sheet provides details of the first free flight planned for 12 August 1977:


And finally, the schedule for the day for NASA guests staying at the Holiday Inn at Palmdale: on the bus at 5:30 AM to head out to Edwards Air Force Base; show over and heading back to Palmdale by 9:00 AM.

If you want to see the flight yourself, a video is available on YouTube. Enterprise separates from the carrier aircraft at around the 4′ 30″ mark, and touches down at around the 9′ 30″ mark.



Footnotes:
¹ Prior to these tests, NASA conducted a series of flights with the shuttle mounted to its Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, initially without crew and without the shuttle’s systems powered up. Later flights had a crew aboard the shuttle and its systems active. NASA also made a series of flights with an F-104 Starfighter in close proximity to the 747 to explore the ability of the shuttle to separate cleanly from the carrier aircraft.
² NASA had purchased its Boeing 747 from American Airlines in 1974 to use for aerodynamic research. In 1976, it returned this aircraft (registration N905NA) to Boeing for refurbishment as a carrier aircraft for the space shuttle.

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Copyright information: all materials in this press kit were produced by NASA. As works of the US federal government, all are in the public domain.