During a shuttle launch, the two white solid rocket boosters (SRB’s) attached to the main orange tank detach first* and fall back to Earth, landing in the Atlantic. These are retrieved by NASA ships and ferried back to be refurbished and refilled for the next mission…a process that requires the efforts of many experienced professionals, to say the least. The video above is the first to be released by NASA of the entire process is high-definition, showing the fall to Earth and retrieval of both SRBs from the Discovery STS-133 launch. Very cool!
Just goes to show that there were a lot more people involved in the shuttle program than astronauts and scientists!
*The main solid rocket tank detaches from the shuttle at a later point and is mostly burnt up in the atmosphere during its fall. It is not reused. For a video of the May 2010 STS-132 shuttle launch, showing a booster’s-eye-view of the entire event, click here.