Rocket-building factories

SPACE

“ Overhead cranes inside can hold up to 325 tons and move massive objects with extreme precision”

Inside a rocket building factory

Take a tour around NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building and fi nd out what role it played in the Space Race

Located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) helped to build spacecraft used in 135 missions from 1968 until 2011, and is set to do so once again.

The lower structure of the building was long used for storing rocket components. A transfer aisle connects the sections and leads to a platform which takes vehicles to the launch pad. Overhead cranes inside can hold up to 325 tons and move massive objects with extreme precision. The fi rst rocket assembled in the VAB was the Saturn V, which is still the largest of its kind ever made. Crawler transporters, which are some of the biggest machines ever to move on land, had to be specially engineered to carry the rockets to the launch pad.

Vehicle construction ceased in the VAB after the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. It was opened to the public for tours around the spaceport to see all the NASA facilities. However, renewed production for future missions has closed the building to the public in February 2014 and it re-opened to begin constructing space vehicles again.

Originally designed to assemble the Apollo and Saturn vehicles, the VAB will now be used to support 21st-century operations. As a result, work is underway to remove old Shuttle-era platforms and introduce ones suited to the new Space Launch System (SLS). The renovation will see a removal of 240 kilometres (150 miles) of Apollo-period cabling in order to update obsolete systems. The fi rst SLS is due for launch in 2017 and will be even larger than the legendary Saturn V. It will be an unmanned Orion crew capsule, which will undertake missions to the Moon and even Mars.

The US fl ag atop the VAB is 64m (209ft) long and could fi t a bus within its stripes! Space Shuttle Atlantis heading out of the door of the Vehicle Assembly Building, toward the launch platform

DID YOU KNOW?

The first launch from the Kennedy Space Center was a modified German V2 rocket in 1950

5 more NASA facilities

1Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA’s fi rst spacefl ight complex was named after Robert H Goddard who built the fi rst liquidfuelled rocket. The area covers 5km2 (2mi2) and comprises 84 buildings.

2Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Explorer 1 was built here in 1958. More recently, unmanned craft like Voyager, Galileo and Viking were made here. JPL controls all robotic planetary spacecraft.

3Armstrong Flight Research Center

Previously known as the Dryden Research Center until this year, this is NASA’s HQ for atmospheric fl ight research and operations. It is used for experimental fl ight tests and contains many of NASA’s top research facilities.

4John H Glenn Research Center

Containing the zero gravity research facility, the centre has facilities for cryogenics, energy storage and advanced materials and played a critical role in the Apollo missions.

5Lyndon B Johnson Space Center

The home base for astronauts, previously known as the Manned Spacecraft Center. At 6.6km2 (2.5mi2), it has over 140 buildings and specialises in manned missions.