The road to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. Completed in 1966, the VAB was originally intended for the vertical stacking of the Saturn V rocket during the Apollo Program era. During the Space Shuttle era, shuttle orbiters were mounted to fuel tanks & rocket boosters. The VAB is the tallest building (outside an urban area) in the US. It was the tallest building in Florida until 1974 & is the largest single story building in the world at 526 feet. At 129,428,000 cubic feet, it’s larger than your average 1-bedroom apartment.
Astronauts on a cloudy day. Alan Bean, Pete Conrad & Richard Gordon hop out of the shuttle bus & step towards the 363-foot tall Saturn V rocket in preparation for Apollo 12, Nov 1969. Conrad & Bean spent 31 hours on the lunar surface while Gordon orbited 45 times above in the Command Module. The spacecraft was nearly identical to that of Apollo 11 with the exception being that hammocks were added to the Lunar Module so that Bean & Conrad could rest more comfortably when not out moonwalking. The mission lasted a total of 10 days & 4 hours.
The Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis I mission has successfully completed several months of simulated space environment System level testing in the NASA-owned thermal vacuum chamber at Plum Brook Station in Ohio, USA.
The testing phase was split into two phases - a 47 day thermal vacuum test and a 14 day electromagnetic compatibility, followed by an interference test in ambient conditions which both simulate the conditions the spacecraft will encounter during its voyage to the Moon and back to Earth.
‘Today marked an important milestone for the Artemis I mission to the Moon,’ said Airbus Head of Space Exploration, Andreas Hammer.
‘We proved to our customers ESA and NASA that the European Service Module, designed and built by our engineers in Bremen – supported by companies in 10 European countries - meets the requirements to withstand the harsh conditions in space.
‘The Artemis programme will land the first woman and next man on the Moon and bring them back safely to Earth, we are proud to contribute to this endeavour with all our know-how, expertise and passion.’
Pleased with the results of this crucial test, the engineering teams from Airbus, the European Space Agency (ESA), Lockheed Martin and NASA have proved the spacecraft is suitable to navigate safely through the extreme conditions that it will experience in space.
Orion will be transported back to the Kennedy Space Center to undergo further testing and prepare the spacecraft for integration with the Space Launch System rocket, beginning the next era of exploration.
Artemis I will travel around the Moon and back to Earth. Airbus in Bremen is already building the second Orion Service Module for Artemis II, where
Neil A. Armstrong, Apollo 11 commander, participates in simulation training in preparation for the scheduled lunar landing mission. He is in the Apollo Lunar Module Mission Simulator in the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Flight Crew Training Building.
(18 Oct. 1966) — The Apollo 1 prime crewmembers for the first manned Apollo Mission (204) prepare to enter their spacecraft inside the altitude chamber at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Entering the hatch is astronaut Virgil I. Grissom, commander; behind him is astronaut Roger B. Chaffee, lunar module pilot; standing at the left with chamber technicians is astronaut Edward H. White II, command module pilot.
The Apollo 10 crew leaves the Kennedy Space Center’s Manned Spacecraft Operations Building during the Apollo 10 prelaunch countdown. Leading is John Young, command module pilot, followed by Tom Stafford, commander; and Gene Cernan, lunar module pilot. The transfer van carried them over to Pad B, Launch Complex 39, where their spacecraft awaited them. Liftoff for the lunar orbit mission was at 12:49 p.m., May 18, 1969.
The first stage of the Saturn 505 launch vehicle being prepared for erection in the high bay area of the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building. Saturn 505 is the launch vehicle for the Apollo 10 mission.
A ground-level view of the huge Apollo 17 space vehicle leaving the Vehicle Assembly Building on its way to Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center. The Saturn V stack and its mobile launch tower are atop a mammoth crawler-transporter.
Apollo 5 Launches 50 Years Ago Today (22 Jan. 1968) — The Apollo 5 (LM-1/Saturn 204) unmanned space mission was launched from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 37 at 5:48:09 p.m. (EST), Jan. 22, 1968. The Lunar Module-1 payload was boosted into Earth orbit by a launch vehicle composed of a Saturn IB first stage and a Saturn S-IVB second stage. The Apollo lunar module’s first flight test was called a complete success. Ascent and descent propulsion systems and the ability to abort a lunar landing and return to orbit were demonstrated.
The Gemini III spacecraft is mated with the Titan II launch vehicle in the white room of Pad 19 at the Kennedy Space Center. Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom and John Young rode the capsule into space on March 23, 1965 for a mission lasting almost five hours. The pair of astronauts tested out the spacecraft on the first manned Gemini flight.
NASA’s 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft No. 911, with the space shuttle orbiter Endeavour securely mounted atop its fuselage, taxies to the runway to begin the ferry flight from Rockwell’s Plant 42 at Palmdale, California, where the orbiter was built, to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. At Kennedy, the space vehicle was processed and launched on orbital mission STS-49, which landed at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Facility (now Armstrong Flight Research Center), Edwards, California. NASA 911, the second modified 747 that went into service in November 1990, has special support struts atop the fuselage and internal strengthening to accommodate the added weight of the orbiters.
i love when you’re talking to someone who’s not from florida and you just casually mention a thing that only happens in Florida and it ruins their whole day
one time i was talking to some guy and he was like “haha how do yall get alligators in your backyard? do you not have fences?” and i had to inform him that gators can absolutely climb fences
omw to go sit in your pool
this is why kennedy space center had to install fancy outward-curving fences around the launchpad, bc gators climbing over regular fences and getting on the launchpad could be very dangerous
I’d like to think that the “STOP ” sign is also for the gators.
