In this part of the report I will be talking about the science of space shuttle lift-off. Lift- off is the main component of space exploration. Without it we wouldn’t be able to go to the great heights that we are accustomed to. The three main parts of the space-ship are the Fuel Tank, two Solid Rocket Boosters and one Orbiter (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). The parts that help a space-ship lift-off are two solid rocket boosters, three main engines of the orbiter, the external fuel tank, and the orbital maneuvering system   (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). The first component is the solid rocket boosters. These are solid rockets that provide 71% of the thrust to make the launch possible (Space Shuttle, 2007). These boosters also support all the weight of the ship on the launch pad (Freudenrich, n.d.). The second component is the three main engines these engines are located in the aft or the back and the body or the fuselage (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). The engines are approximately 14 feet long and 7.5 feet wide (Freudenrich, n.d.). The engines work by burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen which are stored in the external fuel tank (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). The engines extract the fuel at amazing rates which are more than emptying a swimming pool in less than 10 seconds. Then the fuel is fully burned inside the main combustion chamber and they leave to the nozzles from there at 6,000 mph (Freudenrich, n.d.).
                  The next component is the external fuel tank. This tank is 158 feet long, and weighs about 1.6 million pounds when full of gas (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). The external fuel tank is made up of aluminum and other aluminum materials (Space Shuttle, 2007). Inside the tank are chambers for oxygen (forward tank) and the aft tank for hydrogen (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). The tank is covered with a 1-inch layer of spay-on polyisocyanurate foam insulation (Freudenrich, 2007). This protects the fuel from the heat that builds up on the tank when in flight, and it minimizes ice formation (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). One of the main reasons Columbia crashed was because the External Tank was not properly sprayed. The final component of liftoff is the Orbital Maneuvering System or the OMS. These are the engines that bring the spaceship into position to go into orbit (Space Shuttle, 2007). The OMS uses different kinds of gasses they use monomethyl hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). These gasses burn automatically when they touch each other meaning they do not need to have a park to start burning them (Freudenrich, n.d.; Space Shuttle, 2007). Each of these OMS can produce 6,000 pounds of thrust. This is the trickiest part of the lift-off as it needs precision to get the perfect angle to reach orbit (Freudenrich, 2007).
The Timeline for a perfect launch is as followed: T minus 31 seconds the on-board computers start taking over the launch sequence (Freudenrich, 2007). T minus 6.6 seconds the main engines light up and the engines start building up over than 90% of the total thrust (Freudenrich, 2007). T minus 0 seconds the Solid Rocket Boosters are started and the shuttle lifts slowly off the pad (Freudenrich, 2007). T plus 20 seconds the shuttle starts rolling right (Freudenrich, 2007). T plus 2 min the SRBs separate from the orbiter and the fuel tank at an altitude of 28 miles (Freudenrich, 2007). T plus 7.7 min the main engines throttle down to keep the acceleration at a safe speed so the shuttle does not break apart (Freudenrich, 2007). T plus 8.5 min the main engines shut down (Freudenrich, 2007). T plus 9 min the external fuel tank separates from the orbiter (Freudenrich, 2007). T plus 10.5 min the OMS engines fire to place the shuttle in a low orbit (Freudenrich, 2007). T plus 45 min the OMS engines fire for the last time to place the shuttle in its final orbit (Freudenrich, 2007).