Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Welcome home Endeavour!!!

4 comments:

Ed said...

Hey, Damaris. Love your blog! keep it up.

I was wondering if you could clear something up for me. Saw the news footage of the Endeavour landing last night and I noticed something I had never seen before. As the shuttle was rolling to a stop, there was some sort of flame shooting up from where the tail meets the payload bay. What was that?

Damaris Sarria Toepel said...

Good question, Ed! The flame was due to exhaust venting produced by the orbiter's three auxiliary power units, which provide the muscle needed to move the ship's wing flaps, speed brake, landing gear brakes and nose wheel steering. The exhaust appeared normal in infrared views, but was more pronounced than usual in NASA's visible-light camera.

Anonymous said...

I really loved how at the end, the call for commitment to the night landing was up to Commander Gorie. Very wise- you can have everything else in the green, but if the crew isn't comfortable with night ops then why force it?

Ed said...

Wow, did not know that. Cool stuff. Thanks for the explanation, Damaris! :)