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by icegreentea
3571 days ago
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The Air Force requested the ability for the shuttle to take off from Vandenburg Airforce Base, go into polar orbit, and then land back at Vandenburg at the end of that one orbit. This required that the Shuttle have ~1000nm of cross range (that is that once it deorbits, it needed to deviate from its ballistic path by 1000nm). This required big ass wings (which the shuttle got). The Airforce also helped drive the payload (weight and dimension) requirements, but I feel that this is secondary to the cross-range requirement. |
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