Originally Posted by
tartare
It's callsign is Gaspipe
Did the space shuttle maintain coms all the way through re-entry?
Apparently so. The plasma sheath prevents radio comms down to the ground, but not upwards towards satellites. I understand that the plasma tube left behind a re-entering vehicle acts a bit like a waveguide. Back in Apollo's days the US didn't have the in-space comms infrastructure that exists today (and over the past 20+ years).
Pretty sure that a M5, M6 (e.g. X-15) aircraft isn't generating a plasma out of the air it's hitting; it's just getting jolly hot. At the start of reentry, Shuttle was moving at about M17...