The Space Shuttle is a spacecraft that can neither be launched nor be re-entered, found near X = 635 Y = 1915 in Mission 30. After this mission, the Shuttle will appear docked to STA's Oxygen Garden.
It looks like a NASA space shuttle (hence its name), and has a docking port on its port side near the cockpit. It can carry eight units of cargo, of which at least one must be taken up by a Battery.
Despite being based on the real-life space shuttle, which can be re-entered, it cannot yet be landed on HOM as of version 1.8.0 because, as the game states in Mission 30, its re-entry heat shield was damaged by a micrometeorite collision.
The Shuttle is one of 3 objects that cannot be found in the rocket assembly menu, the others being the green-colored Soyuz Docking Module, and the Spy Satellite.
When using Cargo view, both a Station Module Large and a scaled-down Truss Large can be seen inside the cargo bay.
Andy says he has plans to add the space shuttle into the game as a usable part, and it should be able to be launched and re-entered, as well as carry payloads.
Trivia
- In version 1.7.0, a second shuttle with fuel and fully-charged batteries could be found at coordinates X: -99 Y: -99, after completing Mission 32. This was removed in version 1.8.0
- The only current way to add additional shuttles to a sandbox is by modifying the saved sandbox file.
- The Shuttle's name is "Nooleus", with the NASA logo on the shuttle replaced by the Nooleus logo.
"Shuttle Re-imagined" is a blog created by user Angrycat9000, which suggests how the Space Shuttle launch and reentry may work.
Inside the Space Shuttle