Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicle, or simply Shuttle-Derived Vehicle (SDV), is a term describing one of a wide array of concepts that have been developed for creating space launch vehicles from the components, technology and/or infrastructure of the Space Shuttle program. SDVs have also been part of NASA's plans several times in the past. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, NASA formally studied a cargo-only vehicle, Shuttle-C, that would have supplemented the crewed Space Shuttle in orbiting payloads.
In 2005, NASA decided to develop the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles, based in part on highly modified Shuttle components to replace the Space Shuttle, and enable exploration of the Moon and Mars. The agency also studied a third such vehicle, the Ares IV. As of April 2011, NASA's replacement vehicle for the Space Shuttle is an SDV, the Space Launch System.
Read more about Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicle: Concepts, Vision For Space Exploration, Space Launch System, Liberty
Famous quotes containing the words launch and/or vehicle:
“Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The woman may serve as a vehicle for the rapist expressing his rage against a world that gives him pain—because he is poor, or oppressed, or mad, or simply human. Then what of her? We have waded in the swamp of compassion for him long enough.”
—Robin Morgan (b. 1941)