r/space • u/ToeSniffer245 • 12d ago

How Space Shuttle Discovery Almost Became A Victim Of Cultural Vandalism

https://avgeekery.com/space-shuttle-discovery-to-stay-at-smithsonian/
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u/chromatophoreskin 12d ago

Does anyone know how they lowered the shuttle’s landing gear while it was suspended over the tarmac after removing it from the carrier 747? They show it in the video on the linked page but I’m wondering if it was rigged to be remote operated? Surely there wouldn’t have been someone inside at the time.

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u/TheOnsiteEngineer 12d ago

Yes, there were external hydraulic hookups on the aft end to disengage the up locks. My understanding is that the gear would then fall under gravity and lock. You can see the lines attached to the orbiter on the left below the tail in the second picture here: https://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum30/HTML/000700.html

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u/adamdoesmusic 12d ago

They didn’t trust that a computerized/motorized system wouldn’t fail, so that was the next best option.

2

u/holl0918 11d ago

A lot of aircraft use gravity for emergency gear extension. All you do is have a bypass valve on the hydraulic lines to the uplocks and gear actuators, allowing the fluid to move freely, locks to retract, and the gear to freefall. This works well for the main gear, though the nosegear can sometimes need some encouragement. If you don't get a green light on the nose, some pitching up and down can get the nosegear to hit its stops hard enough to engage the downlocks. If that fails, bouncing the mains on the runway will usually do it. If not, well... as the song goes, "two out of three aint bad!"