NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft Arrives at Kennedy Space Center

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NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified 747 jumbo jet, touched down just before 4 p.m. EDT on Tuesday at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The SCA, which is designated NASA 905, was the original shuttle carrier and was used in 1977 for the space shuttle approach and landing tests. This series of eight captive and five free flights with the orbiter prototype Enterprise, in addition to ground taxi tests, validated the aircraft’s performance as an SCA, in addition to verifying the glide and landing characteristics of the orbiter configuration ? paving the way for orbital flights and ferry flights. NASA 905 now will fly the final ferry flight in Space Shuttle Program history.

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2 Comments

  1. My late grandfather, Vic Horton, was 905's original flight engineer from the start of the Shuttle program until his retirement in 1985-86, including the Approach and Landing Tests with the Enterprise. I got to go aboard a few times as a young child, such as the time they brought the Enterprise into Vandenberg AFB for a fit check on the newly-built (and ultimately never-used) SLC-6 pad. We lived in nearby Santa Maria, CA at the time and Grandpa actually had Fitz Fulton make a VERY low pass over our house with the 747-Shuttle combo to let us know he was in town. We went out to the base to meet him for dinner that night.

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