When the shuttle goes from the vacuum of space and enters the earths atmosphere, it heats up because of simple friction. The friction is from the shuttle going so fast and hitting the atmosphere. Same reason you sometimes see meteor showers.
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It heats up a lot and becomes vey hot.
Space shuttles travel in the thermosphere, which is the second highest layer of the Earth's atmosphere. This layer extends from about 80 km to 550 km above the Earth's surface and is where the International Space Station orbits.
No, space shuttles do not land on the moon. Space shuttles are designed to be launched from Earth and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere for landing, not for landing on the moon. The Apollo missions were the only ones to have landed astronauts on the moon.
Space shuttles typically operate in the thermosphere layer of the atmosphere, which extends from about 80 kilometers (50 miles) above the Earth's surface to between 550-1000 kilometers (340-620 miles) high. At these altitudes, the air is extremely thin, allowing the shuttles to operate efficiently in the near-vacuum conditions of space.
6 TotalChallenger, Columbia,Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour, and Buran (Soviet reusable spacecraft) There have been six Space Shuttles. Five have flown in space. The first, Enterprise, flew only in Earth's atmosphere.