Quote:
Originally Posted by dhanners
What was technically known as the Aft Skirt Thermal Curtain (ASTC) was a structure of nine layers of woven insulated material that was a little over 2.5 inches thick. The ring around the RSRM nozzle was made up of 24 segments hand-sewn together.
As best I recall, the colors changed during the course of the shuttle's history; I was able to find photos of the Atlantis mission I modeled and the ASTC on its RSRMs was a tan color.
It is dense reading, but here is one technical paper on them: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/c...9940012651.pdf
And, oddly enough, unused segments show up on eBay from time to time: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Space-Shutt...p2047675.l2557 |
Thanks David for the great information and sources.
I'm not only interested in how the details look like, but as a former researcher I also want to understand their structures and construction, the materials used, technical correlations, etc. ...
I used to think that they were solid materials, and in this sence it sounds rather unbelievable, that the 24 ASTC segments are hand sewn together during installation on the aft skirt.
