> Fortunately, in the case of the shuttle, the engines were on the orbiter, so only the relatively light fuel tank had the problem The Shuttle external tank ne

> Fortunately, in the case of the shuttle, the engines were on the orbiter, so only the relatively light fuel tank had the problem The Shuttle external tank never entered orbit. At separation, the perigee of the trajectory was still inside the atmosphere. While the Shuttle burned its OMS engines at apogee to complete orbital insertion, the external tank remained on a ballistic trajectory, and its impact point was controlled at all times.