STS-128 Landing

[thegreeensky]

excellent landing! really nice...

[EndeavourLaunch]

The last landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

[mnstrbassplyer1]

How do they keep the tires from exploding from the heat generated from re-entry while still in the up position?

[shamsu1982]

Does this space shuttle need engine when it comes down? I have heard that engine is used only when it goes up and it comes down acording to the wind's direction. Is this right?

[bonnano]

@shamsu1982 Yes, the shuttle uses its engines only when going up (first 8:30 minutes). During descent it's a big and expensive glider, but still a great vehicle.

[verticalsmurf]

Amazing! I'm clueless when it comes to aerodynamics, the wings look so small and so far back, the tyres look too small to be able to hold the weight of the shuttle and the parachute looks too small to do anything! But someone figured it out, and obviously it all works. I wish I was one of the lucky people who got to journey into space on one.

[CamDaMan2011]

0:51... It sounded like she said "Sonic Boobs"

[sledger25]

the "smoke" is water vapor. you see it all the time on airplanes if conditions are just right (ie, temperature, low pressure, high humidity)

[ajmjw4]

The smoke contrails that you see is caused by unused diesel fuel. You see it many times at airshows.

[mach25man]

That would be great a great answer if the shuttle carried diesel fuel....

[ajmjw4]

no, they use it in the brake lines. They have a 6 gallon reservoir right behind the crew cabin.

[mach25man]

Brakes work off of hydraulic system using hydraulic fluid. Show me where you got this info please.

[NPSurvival]

lol unused diesel fuel... please go educate yourself and do us all a favor.

[ajmjw4]

No, I read that. Airshow planes use diesel fuel all the time.

[NPSurvival]

This isn't an airplane man. It needs to operate in a vacuum and be effective, so it uses liquid oxygen. No one uses diesel fuel for a rocket lol.

[Muada99]

what was the smoke in the wings while

flying

[mach25man]

No smoke. Their wing tip vorticies caused by temp, humidity,& low pressure.

Happens on regular airplanes all the time if conditions are right.

[BeSweeeet]

4:57 kinda sounds like a plane is going to crash or something.

Wonder if it's going to stop at El Paso again...

[B4rrowPwn]

1:50 looks fake for me

[FORZION]

that's because your an idiot

[2oo8MUSIC2oo8]

NASA <3 FROM SWEDEN

[Oxirk]

This Swede and hes mind...

[Esset06]

Sweden´s first Spacetraveller in a long time comes back after two Space walks. How cool isn´t that ?

[AVIACSA448]

Mission accomplished Jose Hernandez

VIVA MEXICO !

[borussendaniel14]

I don´t knwo how it will be called.xD

Normaly the parachute will be "started" quickly after the main gear touchdown. Why did this parachute started so shortly after the nose geard touchdown.? Suddenly the breaks must work harder than at Nasa shuttle Landing facility because the sand or not.? So I don´t understand why he take the parachute so late after main aund nosegear touchdown. I would be very happy about a feedback

[mach25man]

First of all this is a concrete runway landing just like Florida. Runway 22 at Edwards and runway 33/15 at KSC are the same length at 15000ft. Depending on wind speed/direction and program requirements chute can be deployed early or late after touchdown. I think I saw in another video that it was to be late this time.

[kimmern123]

When there's crosswind over a certain limit, the orbiter performs what is known as a crosswind DTO (Detailed Test Objective). It's basically a difficult way to say that when the crosswinds are high, you deploy the chute after the nose gear has touched down.

[mach25man]

The landing DTO's have always been there to try and widen the parameters of the landing. For instance the DTO's have led to the following changes during landing: The most obvious is the chute itself, beefed up axles & brakes, shaving of the grooves on the KSC runway and a higher crosswind landing changed from 13kts to 15kts. over the years. DTO's and DSO's (detailed secondary objectives) can be performed on launch, on orbit and landing. Thanks for the info.... :)

[GeminiAzules]

looks like a flying bus ;P

[budwheizzah]

Superb! Some of the best landing footage I've seen!

[P250]

Bueno pues finalmente la NASA probó el chile nacional.

[1991fortmex]

vivaaa mexicooooo

[dzikiewicz]

anyone eles see it re enter the atmosphere from outside on the 9th

it was pretty cool

[DjMarel]

Nice,clear landing :-) congratulations :-)

[Nerone100]

HAhahahaha Lagerlokal you idiot

[asdasdasdasdasdas98]

Wing tip vortices.

As the air passes off the edge of the wing it gets sucked round and into a vortex

[w35t51d369]

hmm...i wonder if there's any martians on discovery.

[MrJottell]

sehr schöne Aufnahmen von einer Super Landung!!

[mach25man]

Its not smoke and its not dumping jet fuel. They are wing tip vorticies caused by humidity, air temp and low pressure. All aircraft will do this if the conditions are right. Shuttle releasing jet fuel ???

[azzaboy2012]

The guy speaking in the video even confirms what you just said too. Some people are just to thick lol

[mach25man]

Yea, I realize a lot of them are just kids but some have some wild imaginations.

[simpsonfan1995]

i'd say realising jet fuel (i heard that when an aircraft is about to land, and it has too much fuel, they release it, if they land with it they risk catching fire)

or smoke from hidden jets (kinda unprobbable, but could happen, they work by proppeling the jet to much faster speeds)

[animefanz90]

cool!

[bmcelhattan]

Congratulations Discovery!

[NeMiSiSse018]

A really nice "falling with style" landing. Heard that the mission was successfull and want to congtatulate fuglesang for his first mission in space.

[MemberMan080]

LoL, It's his Second...

[kimmern123]

Have to correct you there: STS-128 was Christer Fuglesang's second mission ;) His first was STS-116 in 2006

[NeMiSiSse018]

aah yes, my bad. too long between rounds, I seem too have a short term memorie ;)

[GoRow247]

So the landing gear is deployed pretty close to touchdown...what happens if there's a malfunction when they attempt to deploy and the gear doesn't come down? Slide in on the belly like a penguin?

[17latter]

I don't think that would EVER happen. I mean, this is NASA, they can't do anything wrong. Oh... wait.

[whyj78]

It comes in too fast for earlier deployment! And in practice, the shuttle can not do a pull-up, you know it isn't really flying, so if the gears don't work your screwed anyway ;)

[mach25man]

The gear can be blown down with a pyro if it fails initial deployment.

[Rollover0105]

Gorgeous! That had to be one of the best videos of the space shuttle, for quality of the image, that I've ever seen. Very nice.

[habbotrix]

wow exelent congratulations!!!!

[RandomComedyNetwork]

random thump at 0:47

[wikingdiv]

They broke the sound barrier.

[simpsonfan1995]

i think those where the 2 sonic booms (meening it broke the speen of sound slew down and broke it again in meer seconds)

[RandomComedyNetwork]

thats fast

[simpsonfan1995]

yah, must be fun =]

[trekkie604]

Landing on a runway is still way cooler than splashing a capsule into the ocean...

[dubexperiments]

I heard that noise

and knew what it was.

[RickyJ46]

Thanks to the nice folks at NASA Dryden's Public Affairs Office and their most excellent recommendation to view this landing from the Twenty Mule Team exit off Highway 58. We thoroughly enjoyed it!

[Ananjeix]

EVERYONE AROUND THE WORLD MUST HAVE THE CHANCE TO DEVELOP THIS SAME TECHNOLOGY IN ORDER TO SEE ALL THE GALAXY (at least)!!!!!!!

[SoCaLMaNDiiE]

I go shooting off the 395 at a spot 3/4 of a mile from edwards.. should of went to red buttes hill

[joohan20]

I fell asleep with my laptop om my stomach. Woke up when they gave the brief interview on the ground :(

[LiveColorado]

Why did they have to land at Edward's instead of back at Kennedy? Weather?

[Gentenaar1988]

bad weather in Florida

[mepilot1]

Amazing on how they have to hold off deploying the gear until the last moments!

Good coverage of the landing!

[mj1234321]

Beautiful! Just won't be the same watching 1960's style splashdowns when we retire the shuttles and regress to capsules.

[TheBensMeister]

Awesome! It's really too bad that they are going back to capsuls. It's amazing that they can even do this considering all the risks and variables. Too bad this barely gets mentioned (unless there is an explosion or scandal).

[koolznstuff]

I heard two huge "booms" yesterday (I'm in southern california.) It was pretty loud!

[TheOnlineCommunity]

Yeah, I was disappointed when I heard they would be landing in California instead of florida, because it's so cool hearing the sonic boom.

[demlasjr]

welcome back guys. I watched you all days on youtube...

[richwaight]

Very very impressive!!

[SamDavid11]

Atterraggio perfetto!

[mrala123]

very nice

[theshadowify]

I am wandering if the camera was on a boat. The view of the shuttle kept swaying. I thought I was going to get sea sick....LOL

[FirewalkR]

Some of the best landing footage I've seen with the cameras continuously following the shuttle from quite a distance, which I'd never seen before I think. Was it different because Discovery landed in California?

[Exaparsec]

Indeed, you can even see the S-maneuver. I think the high magnification cameras are always there, no matter the landing site. It's just that this is the first time NASA has released a video like that to the public.

[mach25man]

At this point the S-turns have already been completed. Your seeing the orbiter going around the heading alignment circle. The swaying is just the camera trying to keep up.

[piloteer]

Beautiful, shame these birds are retiring. The shuttle program is awesome.

[stefkova1234]

its good coming home after a holiday but imagine the exhilaration and feelings coming home after a space vacation wow

[laultimaciudad2050]

THIS IS OUR HIGHEST STANDARDS OF GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY, AND PROOF OF HOW AMAZING WE HUMANS ARE: HERE'S MY TOUGHT: I SEE OUR DISCOVERY SPACESHIP AND I SEE THE METAMORPHOSE OF THE HUMAN BEING, standing able to pursue our ancient dream... thank you so much.... now let's imagine how many civilizations on our own Galaxies are developing this same goal!! HYPERDIMENSIONALITY! we are in the true path for future. Les envío toda la energía de mi ser. Ahora sé queen realidad estamos vivos.

[dodow1234]

yeah that's true, still we are far from interstellar traveling, as the closest star from our Solar System, the Proxima Centaury still 75.000 years away with the current technology, there is no technology nowadays that can achieve result better than that. The distance between our sun and Proxima Centaury is 4,23 light years away.

[hackneysaregreat]

Welcome back, guys.

Whoever did the air to air shots, this was also an outstanding job.

Great video.

[bigbluechevy]

Incredibly cool....great mission guys.

[NiklasKing87]

lol I was riding my bike when I heard the boom..everybody came outside and had this wtf stair on their face.

[Altarcraft]

I hope you didn't fell!

[SouthernSky]

grade A landing

[slimibg]

Another great landing :))

p.s. PLEASE!! Deinterlace your footage before uploading it!... :-\

p.p.s And please use 25 or 30 fps, not 15 :-\\\

[stefanstolk]

My thoughts exactly.

For a television station this is just bad footage. And HD please! :P

[Karsten1948]

This is absolutely one of the most beautiful and sharp videos of a Space Shuttle landing I have ever seen.

[joshatkins94]

The views (presumably from chase planes) are fantastic.

[mach25man]

Views are from long range cameras.

[poit0]

and theyre manipulated with computers? because the view so perfect

[mach25man]

Operated manually....

[joshatkins94]

Oh, ok. Thx for explaining.

[RoryM07]

Welcome Home Discovery, Excellent Mission!

[Polaventris]

Beautiful landing!

[DarkFly3r]

Perfect landing! Welcome back home Discovery. :)

[BSZanatsu]

That was cool but I'm sorry that thing was falling not flying. the only reason thet it did not go almost strate down is because of the MASIVE forword momentum.

[snoopyloopy]

well not to mention the wings do also provide some semblance of lift. but it does come in rather steeply.

[BSZanatsu]

Ya I know thats why I said, "almost strate"

[Gatedialer]

no.

The shuttle does produce lift, and is "flying" seeing as how it is able to maneuver using the control surfaces, and it has a postive glide ratio. (horizontal distance is longer than vertical distance)

[BSZanatsu]

Ok. I was just exaggerating the fact that it is falling VERY fast. The, "horizontal distance is longer than vertical distance" is so because it is going first at and then near super sonic speads. If it was going the speed of commercial jet liner it would be going even faster down and then may not acualy be able to land in a horizontal manner.

[mach25man]

Also because its a glider, energy is kept on the positive side of the curve. Better to have too much then not enough. Thats why landings are fast and steep. Its all about energy management.

[londongames]

i' ve watch this landing on live streaming in NASA TV. Thank you NASA! I'm from the Philippines and I am a officially space exploration fan.

[cowpacino]

Welcome home Discovery

[Cerberus889]

Beautiful

[teobesta]

that is just absolutely beautiful

regardless of how many times i watch it

[yilito100]

Real genius!

[binmai00]

Cool! Congrats on a beautiful landing!

[MewFushisDad]

Never ceases to amaze me.

A Perfect landing for a beautiful Craft.

[jorge10928]

does the landing gear not have brakes? it looks like it just rolls until it comes to a stop on its own.... lol

[mach25man]

It has brakes. Sometimes brakes are used less or more and the chute is deployed early or late depending on program objectives.

[ArmandoCasas]

Awesome...

[WatchMaiiVidz]

I felt the sonic boom while I was watching another video.

I taught it was an asteroid!

[QuarterPounder4]

I was very fortunate enough to go with my dad and get as close as we could to watch the landing live. Got an AMAZING view through binoculars. Great job, welcome back.

[pilotwave]

Great Job, Discovery!!! Welcome Back.

[robertonjr10]

Congrats Discovery, what a succesfull mision!:)

[digitalimpulse]

Amazing watching "Sonic Boom" become a trending topic on Twitter as Southern Cali heard it lol.

See, the general public does like space as long as it is cool!!

[DenvrDave]

Excellent video! Thank you very much for sharing.

[Nebula1701]

AWESOME!!

[Elghast]

Hooray!

Welcome home Discovery!