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| Space Vehicles |
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Delta
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The primary business at the Kennedy Space Center is preparing and launching manned and unmanned space vehicles. The majority of America's unmanned rockets are launched on the other side of the Banana River at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Included in America's fleet of unmanned rockets are the Delta, Atlas-Centaur, and the Titan. A Titan Centaur was used to deploy the two Viking probes to Mars in 1976 and the Voyager I & II satellites to Neptune.
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Atlas
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Titan
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Space Shuttle
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Much of the public focus today involves human space flight. Our Shuttle fleet includes three orbiters: Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. The Space Shuttle actually comprises four major components: the two solid rocket boosters, the large orange external tank, and the orbiter itself. The entire system weighs approximately four and a half million pounds at launch and provides about seven million pounds of thrust. It is amazing that in just eight and a half minutes, this 220,000-pound orbiter will go from a standing start to almost 10 times the speed of a rifle bullet.
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