Space Shuttle’s Final Flight Tank Spliced Together.

planenews.com ^ | 3/02/2010 | planenews.com

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The Space Shuttle Program’s final flight tank, designated External Tank-138, has completed a critical production milestone at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility. Lockheed Martin builds the External Tanks in New Orleans where its engineers and technicians mechanically spliced ET-138’s liquid oxygen (LO2)/intertank to the liquid hydrogen (LH2) tank, thus producing “a whole tank” for the first time in the production process.

The work is performed in Cell A in the 20-story-tall Vertical Assembly Building, and is the only time during production that the tank is standing upright. Workers also completed foam closeouts on the LH2 to intertank flange.

An External Tank is actually three components in one. The 54.6-foot-tall bullet-shaped LO2 tank sits at the top. The 22.5-foot-long intertank separates the LO2 tank and the LH2 tank and does not hold fuel. Unpressurized, the intertank serves as the forward attachment point for the Solid Rocket Boosters. The bottom vessel is the 96.7-foot-tall LH2 tank. The LO2 tank and intertank are already spliced together when they enter Cell A.

[familyop]

Are we to understand that the Shuttle will fly one more time? If so, hopefully, that space Cadillac for civilians will hold up then.

[Frantzie]

Sad but a lot of the workers are suprisngly Teamsters who voted for Hussein. Unions ruin evrything along with Democrats. They can also thank Bill Nelson that stupid ba*tard.

[Names Ash Housewares]

The shuttle fleet has four flights left this year.

STS-131 Discovery (ISS-33) Pad A Apr 5, 2010 (ISS-33-19A: MPLM, LMC)
STS-132 Atlantis (ISS-34) Pad A May 14, 2010 (ISS-34-ULF4: MPLM, ICC, MRM1)
STS-134 Endeavour (ISS-35) Pad A Jul 29, 2010 (ISS-35-ULF6: MLPM, ELC3, AMS)
STS-133 Discovery (ISS-36) Pad A Sep 16, 2010 (ISS-36-ULF5: MPLM, ELC4)

And that’s it for the shuttle.
Unless a miracle happens soon.

[MistrX]

Thanks to president sh!thead, America closes the books on manned space exploration.

What a putz.

[valkyry1]

Well I really hope we dont lose any more them between now and then.

[Yo-Yo]

in the 20-story-tall Vertical Vehicle Assembly Building,

[A.A. Cunningham]

in the 20-story-tall Vertical Vehicle Assembly Building, (sic)

Wrong. This article doesn't refer to the vehicle assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center.

Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans is a world-class manufacturing facility providing vital support to NASA exploration and discovery missions. Michoud's capabilities include the manufacture and assembly of critical hardware components for the space shuttle and exploration vehicles under development at Marshall and other NASA field centers. Michoud is a NASA-owned facility managed by Marshall Space Flight Center.

Michoud is unique in that it contains one of the largest production buildings in the nation, which includes a vertical assembly building for stacking external tank components for the space shuttle program. Michoud supports several major projects for NASA’s Constellation Program, which is developing America’s next generation of space transportation vehicles. Michoud’s highly skilled workforce will manufacture and assemble the upper stage of the Ares I rocket, the core stage and Earth departure stage of the Ares V cargo rocket, and the Orion crew exploration vehicle, and will conduct final systems integration and checkout of Ares I avionics systems.

Michoud Assembly Facility

[Yo-Yo]

[tet68]

Michoud supports several major projects for NASA’s Constellation Program, which is developing America’s next generation of space transportation vehicles. Michoud’s highly skilled workforce will manufacture and assemble the upper stage of the Ares I rocket, the core stage and Earth departure stage of the Ares V cargo rocket, and the Orion crew exploration vehicle, and will conduct final systems integration and checkout of Ares I avionics systems.

Thank you president Obama.

[norraad]

Don’t worry, I lubbed up that O-ring real good.

[Bogey78O]

The real messed up thing with the whole Michoud area is back in the 70s they built up the area under the assumption that it’d be cranking out space vehicles like crazy during the 80s. It was sad to drive down Michoud Boulevard and there be nothing. Seeing the old facility maps for the utilities shows how they expected thousands of houses to be dropped in the area.

On the bright side, if they had built them, Katrina would have flooded them out.