Final Landing of Space Shuttle Endeavour

Wednesday 1 June 2011 at 7:35am BST is when Space Shuttle Endeavour is due to land, after 16 days and 248 orbits, for the final time. Endeavour is the fifth and final spaceworthy NASA space shuttle to be built, constructed as a replacement for Challenger. Endeavour first flew in May 1992 on mission STS-49 and was scheduled for decommissioning in 2010, however scheduling changes of earlier Shuttle flights meant that Endeavour’s final flight slipped into 2011.

If Endeavour is able to land from orbit 248 it will commence its de-orbit burn at 6:29am BST, essentially, this slows Endeavour’s “forward” motion down so that it falls towards the earth, bringing it out of orbit. (The Shuttle is actually travelling tail first and upside down, relative the Earth at this point.)

Approximately half an orbit later the Shuttle flips over and begins to encounter denser atmospheric friction. Now at 400,000 ft, travelling at Mach 25, the Shuttle must get rid of the energy it gained from launch. It begins a series of 4 S-shaped banking turns, which slows the vehicle down while still descending, it’s at this time the Shuttle’s underside gets to its hottest and glows red, due to the vast amount of friction with the Earth’s atmosphere.

Once these manoeuvres have been completed, the simplistic explanation of the rest of the landing is like landing a glider, although everything is much faster and steeper.

Endeavour’s landing ground tracks can be seen here:

Long-Range Ground Track

Mid-Range Ground Track

Close-Range Ground Track

Video of Endeavour’s final landing