Space Shuttle Pathfinder

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Space Shuttles
US Space Shuttle program Enterprise (atmospheric tests) Pathfinder (ground facilities tests) Columbia (destroyed 2003) Challenger (destroyed 1986) Discovery (active) Atlantis (active) Endeavour (grounded for maintenance) Explorer (replica for museum display)
Soviet Shuttle Buran program Buran (retired, damaged) Ptichka (completed, unused) 2.01 (unfinished) 2.02 (dismantled) 2.03 (dismantled)

The Space Shuttle Orbiter Pathfinder (unofficial Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-098) is a 75-ton Space Shuttle mock-up made of steel. It was initially built and used by NASA to practice handling and moving of actual Space Shuttles (as made possible by the mock-up's similarity in size, weight and shape). This allowed facilities to be tested without requiring the use of Enterprise.

Later, a Japanese organization funded the refurbishment of the steel mock-up to more closely resemble an actual Space Shuttle and named it Pathfinder, for purposes of showing it in a Tokyo space exhibition. Pathfinder has since been returned to the U.S. and is presently on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Space Shuttle Pathfinder based at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

It is displayed as part of a complete Shuttle stack, mounted on the MPTA-ET external tank which was used for propulsion tests with MPTA-098, and with two prototype Advanced Solid Rocket Booster casings, developed after the Challenger accident, but were never put into production.

Pathfinder is noticeably shorter than actual shuttle orbiters. (Compare where forward section blends with wings, and attaches to external tank.)

As time has gone on NASA has borrowed parts from the SRB's Pathfinder mock-up to be used in other research. These parts were replaced with fake parts.

External links

• [Orbiter Vehicles]
• [Shuttle Test Article Pathfinder]

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