What did neil Armstrong back to earth?

Answer 1

this is not in my word but....The Shuttle, when How_does_a_space_shuttle_come_back_to_earthcomes back Earth just behave like a spatial glider! It has no way to brake between the orbit and the landing! When it's time to go home, the Shuttle usually is upside down. On the other hand, it's rotated tailfirst and its engines are fired. This is called a 'deorbit burn'. The deorbit burn just slows the Shuttle, and... the Shuttle begins its descent out of orbit. The Space Shuttle is slowed by 148 miles per hour (217 feet per second) (237 km/h -66 m/s) This is taking place half-the planet -and one hour- before the landing site. This means that, for a landing at the Kennedy Space Center, the deorbit burn is performed over the Indian ocean! The orbiter, then, is turned nose forward, in an upright position as it descends towards the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere. 25 minutes later, the Space Shuttle just is reaching the point of its altitude where it meets the atmosphere! The orbiter is then at 400,000 ft -80 miles (129 km) of altitude- and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) from the landing site. The entry phase, strictly speaking, has begun a little earlier, at 557,000 ft. When reaching the 400,000-ft mark, the orbiter's nose is raised at an angle of 40°. This is to that the thermal shield, which protects the Shuttle, be correctly oriented

thumbnail to a sketch illustrating the descent of the shuttle

click for a a sketch illustrating the descent of the Space Shuttle

The re-entry into the atmosphere occurs between 265,000 ft and 162,000 ft. The How_does_a_space_shuttle_come_back_to_earthcontact then is interrupted, due to the heat, during about 16 minutes as the heat shield tiles are heated up to 3,000°F (1,650 °C). Then comes the time when the Shuttle performs a series of four tight turns. Such turns aim at slowing the Shuttle down. It's at 140 miles from the runway, at an altitude of 150,000 ft, that the orbiter begins to catch the landing site's TACAN -that is a radio-navigation aid of the military type, helping the Shuttle to steer home. The Shuttle's speed gets down to Mach 3 -about 1,870 mph (3,000 km/h). When the Shuttle has come to 25 miles from the runway, at an altitude of 50,000 ft -with a speed now under Mach 1 -321 mph, (1,000 km/h), it's the mission's commander who takes the control of the orbiter, disconnecting the autopilot which conducted the operations until then. The commander, then, flies the approach and the landing! He uses an instrument aid called the 'Scanning Beam Landing System'. To get aligned with the runway, the Shuttle sometimes has to make a full 360° turn, of 4 miles (6,5 km) in diameter. The altitude, during the turn, is passing from 50,000 to 10,000 ft. During its descent towards the runway threshold, the orbiter may have the nose up by as much as 19° or it may have the nose down. The angle of the slope to the runway is larger than, for example, the one of an airliner, as the orbiter is descending 20 times faster -and with a speed of about 300 kts!

At 2,000 ft and 1 mile (1,6 km) from the runway's threshold, the commander flares the Shuttle to a shallow nose-up/tail-down position for the landing. This has the effect of slowing the descent. Gears down! The touchdown occurs at a speed of 220 mph (about 190 knots, 354 km/h). An airliner usually touches down at about 140 knots. A parachute deploys. It's braking the speed of the orbiter, as the nose if lowered unto the runway. The Shuttle keeps rolling for a 1.5 mile (2.4 km) as it eventually comes to a slow stop by the end of the runway. Here we are! The Space Shuttle has landed!