Black1
Full Access Member
The shuttle is landing at Edwards AFB. About 11mins until touch-down. :rock:
Django said:Home safe and sound....
D
Whitesnake said:i did.....................and?
what's the big deal?
Black1 said:With all the gun shots in yer hood.... just another saturday night, eh?
FerrariTruck said:was really cool, sounded like a double boom. last time heard was over 8 years ago
Black1 said:Yep, always a "double boom".... No one can really explain why. :dontknow: I guess all planes (that break the sound barrier) make two "booms", but the shuttle is so damn BIG, it spreads the sound out enough to actually hear both of them.
It's Saturday here, Hermano.
ccfeyh said:It's caused by the speed of the shuttle, it's hitting twice the speed of sound when it starts it's circle to line up, hence the two sonic booms.
What causes the two sonic booms as the shuttle is approaching the landing site?
As the space shuttle re-enters the atmosphere at supersonic speeds, it creates shock waves that produce sonic booms. There is a shock wave at the orbiter's nose and one at the orbiter's tail as it re-enters These shock waves are created when the pressure disturbances caused by the shuttle flying through the air cannot escape the shuttle. These pressure waves travel at the speed of sound, but the shuttle is flying faster than the speed of sound, so a wave of pressure builds up along the nose and tail. As the shuttle altitude decreases, these pressure waves intersect the ground with a large pressure delta that your ears detect as a boom.
In fact, you'll hear not one, but two sonic booms! Because the space shuttle is so large, 37 meters (122 feet) long, you will hear the sonic booms created by both the nose and tail shock waves, which occur about one-half second apart. All supersonic airplanes produce two sonic booms, but because they happen so close to each other, you hear them as one sound.