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[[bold]] Chapter 3: The Space Shuttle [[/bold]]

[[italics]] Objective: To learn the shuttle and its next KidSat flight. [[/italics]]


This chapter provides an introduction to the space shuttle and a space shuttle mission. It is geared toward KidSat, and is not intended to be comprehensive or detailed, but rather to give you and your students a basic understanding of the shuttle, an introduction to some concepts that will be relevant to KidSat, and an introduction to the next KidSat flight. There is a lot of information, on the space shuttle, and each mission, available at NASA's shuttle web site:

[[bold]] http://shuttle.nasa.gov [[/bold]]

It's not necessary to know much about the space shuttle to participate in KidSat. The essentials are outlined below. In particular, there are a couple of concepts that are critical to success in KidSat: students must have a sense of the space shuttle's orbit (described briefly in ch. 3, and in more detail in ch. 6), and they must understand "Mission Elapsed Time".


[[bold]] Essentials: [[/bold]]
• Information on the next KidSat flight (launch date, flight duration, astronaut crew, 
  experiments, etc.) can be found on the "Fact Sheet" accompanying this chapter.

• The space shuttle goes into orbit around the Earth.
-On KidSat flights, its altitude will range from about 160 miles (early in the flight) to 240 miles (later in the flight).
-The space shuttle goes around the Earth once every 90 minutes.
-About 45 minutes of each orbit is in daylight; 45 minutes is in night.

•After launch, time is measured in "Mission Elapsed Time" (MET): the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds since launch. (Your students need to understand MET; they will use it to specify photograph selections)


Teachers' Handbook   Page 37