Warbird Information Exchange

Does anyone know what an "Approach and Landing Test Assembly (ALTA) pod" is?

I was over looking at pictures of the Shuttles at the NASA.gov site, and they're using Endeavour as a guinea pig for equipment/procedures for putting the ALTA (whatever it is) onto Enterprise for the flight up to JFK. The ALTA goes where the OMS pods go - looks just like an OMS pod, including having false thruster ports painted on.

My guess, given the Approach and Landing Test (ALT) part, is that it's a piece of Enterprise hardware - maybe containing additional sensors or trials equipment - from the ALTs that NASA has held onto (since NASA tends to squirrel all sorts of stuff away). In the event they ever needed to drop a shuttle off of an SCA again ... (only semi-sarcastic with that).

Enterprise's fake OMS pods were removed a month or two back. They're now sitting on the floor of the NASM restoration hangar covered by clear plastic tarps. Her hatch has been open for a few months as well, but with the opening also covered in plastic.

you are right, they were used after Enterprise was retired when the other oribters need to be moved by 747's and ther pods were undergoing mantaince or repair. The one's used for displaying Enterprise were made of fiberglass and not capable of flight.
(ferrying on the 747's)

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You can't see me!!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shutt ... apods.html

Everything you need to know about the ALTA pods.

And yes, they're Original Equipment to Enterprise, so it's the first time since she was moved to the Smithsonian that they'll be "together". The reason for the "testing" isn't to test the pods themselves, but to get the crane moves down right so they don't hit anything while trying to fit them inside the Udvar-Hazy building.

Last week the Intrepid announced some of its plans for the new Shuttle building. Also, it asked for some major financial assistance, to the sum of $85 million, about $45 million from government and $40 million from private donors for the Shuttle building. How prepared were they if they are asking for this kind of money?

Museum Seeks State Money for Space Shuttle’s Home
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... tles-home/

An NYC space hub
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/op ... Z05dUtf44J

From earlier in this thread:


In my best Forrest Gump voice: And that's all I have to say about that.

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Cheers,
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas

PIC, Ford 6600 pulling Rhino batwing up and down the runway

This is what they want to build.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

That's FUGLY !

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

And completely unrealistic

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director