Approach and Landing Tests

The Approach and Landing Tests were a series of taxi and flight trials of the prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise, conducted in 1977 to test the vehicle's flight characteristics both on its own and when mated to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, prior to the operational debut of the shuttle system.

The Space Shuttle program originated in the late 1960s as a means of reducing the cost of spaceflight by introducing a reusable spacecraft. The final agreed design would feature a reusable spaceplane, a disposable external tank and reusable solid-fuel rocket boosters. The contract to build the spaceplane, which eventually came to be known as the "orbiter", was awarded to North American Rockwell (later Rockwell International), with the first complete orbiter rolled out in 1976. Originally planned to be named Constitution (due to its completion being in the year of the United States Bicentennial), a letter-writing campaign by Star Trek fans persuaded President Ford to change the name of the prototype to Enterprise. It was unveiled to the public on September 17, 1976, with several members of the Star Trek cast in attendance.

Upon the orbiter's entry into service, NASA began an extensive program of tests using Enterprise to ensure all of the systems it had put in place for the Shuttle program functioned as designed. These tests would encompass not only the flight tests planned to test the flight characteristics of the orbiter, but also ground based testing of the launch pad systems and procedures. In January 1977, Enterprise was taken by road from the Rockwell plant at Palmdale, California to the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base to begin the flight test phase of the program, which had been christened by NASA as the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT).

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