How is a space shuttle different from a conventional rocket?

The space shuttle launched like a rocket. But it landed like a glider airplane. The solid rocket boosters and the main engines on the orbiter helped the shuttle blast off from Earth like a rocket. The external tank dropped off the orbiter after it had used all the fuel in the tank.

Could the space shuttle fly in atmosphere?

A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft in Earth’s atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer space. Three types of spaceplanes have successfully launched to orbit, reentered Earth’s atmosphere, and landed: the Space Shuttle, Buran, and the X-37.

Why do space shuttles launched vertically?

Space shuttles and every other ground launched space vehicle launches vertically in order to get through as much of the atmosphere as quickly as possible. Then once this is mostly accomplished the rockets trajectory curves over to that the shuttle orbiter vehicle is in a head down orientation.

Why don’t we use space shuttle?

“The bottom line answer is that it was too expensive. Way too expensive,” former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory system engineer Mark Adler wrote in 2015. “The shuttle never met its promise for low-cost access to space by virtue of the system’s reusability.”

Why is there no space shuttle?

While reentering Earth’s atmosphere, Columbia broke apart, killing the entire crew. All of these factors — high costs, slow turnaround, few customers, and a vehicle (and agency) that had major safety problems — combined to make the Bush administration realize it was time for the Space Shuttle Program to retire.

Why space rockets are launched from west to east?

Our earth rotates from west to east. So, when a rocket is propelled from west to east in the equatorial plane, the rocket gets added advantage of earth’s rotational speed. A component of earth’s rotational speed adds up with the projection speed of the rocket.