Space Shuttle Pathfinder
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| <tr valign=top><td>Orbiter Vehicle Designation:</td><td>OV-098</td></tr><tr valign=top><td>Country:</td><td>United States</td></tr><tr valign=top><td>Time spent in space:</td><td>Not a space vehicle</td></tr><tr valign=top><td>Status:</td><td>On display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.</td></tr> |
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The Space Shuttle Orbiter Pathfinder (honorary Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-098) is a Space Shuttle simulator made of steel and wood. Originally unnamed, the simulator was built at the Marshall Space Flight Center in 1977 for use in activities such as checking roadway clearances, crane capabilities and fits within structures. It was later shipped by barge to the Kennedy Space Center and was used for ground crew testing in the Vehicle Assembly Building, Orbiter Processing Facility, and Shuttle Landing Facility. Pathfinder is approximately the same size, shape and weight of an actual Orbiter. The use of Pathfinder allowed facilities to be tested without requiring the use of the more delicate and expensive Enterprise.
After it had sat in storage for many years, a Japanese organization funded the refurbishment of the steel mock-up to more closely resemble an actual Space Shuttle and named it Pathfinder. It was displayed at the "Great Space Shuttle Exposition" in Tokyo from June 1983 to August 1984. Pathfinder has since been returned to the U.S. and is presently on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
It is displayed as part of a complete Shuttle stack, mounted on the MPTA-ET external tank which was used for propulsion tests with MPTA-098, and with two prototype Advanced Solid Rocket Booster casings, developed after the Challenger accident, but were never put into production.
Pathfinder is noticeably shorter than actual shuttle orbiters. Compare where the forward section blends with the wings, and attaches to the external tank.
In 1999, NASA removed the forward assemblies from each SRB attached to the Pathfinder stack. Although the SRBs are recovered and reused after each flight, several of the forward assemblies had been damaged or lost over the history of the Space Shuttle program necessitating the acquisition of those attached to the Pathfinder stack as spares.<ref>"NASA recalls museum's shuttle parts / Forward assemblies are needed for use in program's plans", Houston Chronicle, 1999-02-15, pp. A11.</ref>
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| Space Shuttles | |||
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| Image:DiscoveryVABrollout.jpg | Image:Flag of the United States.svg US Space Shuttle program
| Image:Flag of the Soviet Union.svg Soviet Buran program | |
es:Transbordador espacial Pathfinder fr:Navette spatiale Pathfinder he:מעבורת החלל פת'פיינדר hu:Pathfinder űrrepülőgép nl:Space Shuttle Pathfinder ja:パスファインダー (オービタ) no:Pathfinder (romferge) nn:Romferja Pathfinder pl:Pathfinder (makieta wahadłowca) pt:Pathfinder (ônibus espacial) sl:Raketoplan Pathfinder sv:Pathfinder (rymdfärja)
