Posts: 1896
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: May 2000

posted 08-01-2009 12:23 PM               

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rob Joyner:
I've been unsuccessful in seeing any landing approaches and would like to know how soon before landing is it determined which end of the Landing Facilty an orbiter will use, 15 or 33?

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The runway preference is picked several days out, though a change up until as short as 15 minutes before (STS-121 for example) is always a possibility if the weather changes at the last minute.

In the hours before landing, the Shuttle Training Aircraft flies weather reconn and recommends they either stick with the planned runway direction or change it; so almost all the time, the pick is usually known at least an hour or more before. But, I can name that one case above where they had to switch about 15 minutes out as a rain shower popped up.