Editing Reaction control system (section)

===Location of thrusters on spaceplanes===
[[File:Shuttle front RCS.jpg|thumb|250px|RCS thrusters on the nose of [[Space Shuttle Discovery|''Discovery'']], a [[Space Shuttle orbiter]].]]

The suborbital [[North American X-15|X-15]] and a companion training aero-spacecraft, the [[Lockheed NF-104A|NF-104 AST]], both intended to travel to an altitude that rendered their aerodynamic control surfaces unusable, established a convention for locations for thrusters on winged vehicles not intended to dock in space; that is, those that only have attitude control thrusters. Those for pitch and yaw are located in the nose, forward of the cockpit, and replace a standard radar system. Those for roll are located at the wingtips. The [[Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar|X-20]], which would have gone into orbit, continued this pattern.

Unlike these, the [[Space Shuttle orbiter|Space Shuttle Orbiter]] had many more thrusters, which were required to control vehicle attitude in both orbital flight and during the early part of atmospheric entry, as well as carry out rendezvous and docking maneuvers in orbit. Shuttle thrusters were grouped in the nose of the vehicle and on each of the two aft [[Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System|Orbital Maneuvering System]] pods. No nozzles interrupted the heat shield on the underside of the craft; instead, the nose RCS nozzles which control positive pitch were mounted on the side of the vehicle, and were canted downward. The downward-facing negative pitch thrusters were located in the [[Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System|OMS]] pods mounted in the tail/afterbody.