What is its altitude? How much fuel does it use? A. Like any other object in low-Earth orbit, a Space Shuttle must reach speeds of about 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour) to remain in orbit.

How fast does a space shuttle take off?

To reach the minimum altitude required to orbit the Earth, the space shuttle must accelerate from zero to 8,000 meters per second (almost 18,000 miles per hour) in eight and a half minutes.

What is the fastest the space shuttle have gone?

During the time of closest approach, it was travelling at about 150 kilometres per second relative to the sun, the fastest any spacecraft has ever moved. At this rate, it would take about 4.5 minutes to cover the entire circumference of Earth, or around 40 minutes to fly from Earth to the moon.