How the payload gets in the shuttle

Here's a bunch of pictures to show how our payload gets installed in the shuttle.

Our carriers that carry the payloads: MULE, FSS, ORUC and SLIC from left to right

Here's the pad. On the left is the RSS which is where the payload goes (light gray area).
Our stuff gets out to the pad via the ''can''.

Our payload is installed in the can then rotated to this standing position.
Here's the can leaving for the pad

Can enroute to Pad A

Later that day, the can arrives at the pad. Techs will lift it into the RSS and
prepare the payload for removal.

Here's a pic of the RSS with the can installed (white rectangle in middle of gray structure).

That's the can in the middle of the RSS. The RSS stays open until our
stuff is removed from the can.

One last picture of the RSS with the can.

There is a room in the RSS called the Payload Changeout Room (PCR). We spent A LOT of time there. Above is a picture of the can with its doors open.

A big machine called the PGHM (pronounced piggum) pulls the payload out of the can and then sticks it in the shuttle. The PGHM is the white thing on the right that rolls and grabs our stuff.

When the payload is inside the PCR, the can is lowered and the RSS rotates
onto the shuttle as seen above.

The shuttle's payload bay doors open and the payload is unbagged. The PGHM can now roll forward and install our carriers.

That's all there is to it! We spent a whole week in that PCR watching techs only to get our mission delayed and everything taken out! Yay!

Our carriers are back in the processing facility and this coming week we will do our last tests before returning to Maryland. Then, in a few months, we can come back and do it all again!

Double Shuttles

Here's some pretty pics when the shuttles were on their pads together (Pad A is closer with Atlantis, B is further away with Endeavour).

Exploring Pad A

Our equipment is heading out to Pad A this weekend so we went out to take "engineering photos" before got there. Really, we're bumbling around taking stupid photos like this:


First, the coolest thing was walking under the Mobile Launch Platform (MLP). I have a couple pics looking into the flame trench and also up through the MLP at the shuttle. The whole thing stands on 8 little dinky looking pillars, but i guess that's all it needs. The MLPs used for shuttle launches are the same ones used for the Apollo missions. Here's some pics:

Flame Trench/Deflector

Looking up the flame hole

Straight on view of flame trench and MLP (2 storey structure on bottom)

I bet some people are confused as to what that giant wall of gray metal is. well the Pad is made of 2 parts, the Fixed Support structure (FSS) and the Rotating Support Structure (RSS). The RSS is usually opened, and when the shuttle stack rolls in the RSS closes on the shuttle to protect it.

You can see how on the left the RSS is open, on the right it's closed.






After gawking at the size of the structure, we got in the elevator and poked around. One of the most unnerving things was a walkway around the front of the RSS: the floor was grated so you could see straight down 150 floors. Here's a pic i took looking at the crawler and another looking down at some people working:



Oh yeah, there was the shuttle too:

Looking down the walkway for the crew

On the way out, we had a photo-op with the crawler, so here are some of those pics

Side view from the street

Front view

Greasy gear closeup

Two other cool things I saw, first is a picture one of the emergency escape baskets (I'm totally volunteering to test these out).

And the last thing is this craaaaaaaaazy weld joint:


The second shuttle stack (Endeavour) is going to roll out to Pad B soon. When its out there, it'll be photo op city because there haven't been shuttles on both pads with the RSS open in a loooong time. I dunno if i'm going to get up early, but i'll definitely find pics to post!

Lunch Trip 1

New feature for the blog: Lunch Trip

I'll go on a little trip to explore KSC or the air force base during lunch, or down time. My first one is kind of a drive-by look at the VAB (vehicle assembly building), launch Pad A and the Crawler.


Here's the VAB:

The VAB is the largest 1 story building in the world. It is 525 feet tall, 716 feet long and 518 feet wide. Each of the stars on the American Flag painted on the building is 6 feet across, the blue field is the size of a regulation basketball court and the whole flag is as long as a football field. It is able to withstand hurricanes, but Hurricane Frances blew off some panels (top picture, left of the flag). The rocks seen in the left pic are on the "Crawlerway", and they are special rocks that were selected due to their compression properties

The crawler is what gets to ride on the "Crawlerway". Here it is:
The Crawler weighs 6 million pounds (each tread weighs about 1 ton). The crawler's max speed is 1 mile per hour and burns 150 gallons per mile. The distance from the VAB to a pad is about 3.5 miles, which at today's gas prices is about $2100. Takes about 5 hours to go to the pad.



Next stop: Pad A. This pad is where the Atlantis will blast off from (so says the security guard). Couldn't get right up on it (even though i have authorization) because I didn't have a hard hat. Check it:




Finally, got to see the can. This thing will drive all the payloads to the pad. It will get lifted vertically in that big gray structure and all the payloads will get pushed into the Orbiter (space shuttle) cargo bay.




Check back tomorrow for the next Lunch Trip: Complex 34, Where Saturn 1 and 1B were launched from!