Posted on 06/29/2019 7:48:38 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The Mobile Launcher is a moving platform that will transfer the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) Space Launch System from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. The $1 billion tower is one of the tallest structures in the Cape Canaveral area, and NASA originally built it for the Ares 1 rocket, a single-booster launcher that was cancelled in 2010 before it ever flew on an orbital mission.
The rollout of the Mobile Launcher to pad 39B this week caps nine months of electrical and mechanical testing inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. After checking the platform and tower’s compatibility with the VAB, where the Space Launch System will be stacked, engineers now want to ensure it will work at the launch pad.
Difficulties with the assembly of the Space Launch System’s Boeing-built core stage in Louisiana have put in doubt a first launch of the new rocket in 2020, three years later than originally envisioned.
NASA is developing the Space Launch System to send astronauts on voyages to the moon — with a goal of a human landing there within five years — by way of a mini-space station the space agency plans to assemble in a high lunar orbit.
(Excerpt) Read more at spaceflightnow.com ...
The first words I saw were “pad 39B” and something else came to mind, employing “pad” as a verb.
Isn’t SLS to use the Northrup Grumman five segment solid fuel boosters? A recent test presented interesting results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mTCxpGSIbI
nice link. I wonder what the people of UT think of the massive air pollution in their States from these tests.....
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