More Ferry Flight Pics

I got some more pictures of Atlantis' ferry flight from California to KSC from other people and from NASA. Enjoy!









i also got to see another Atlas V launch. I'll put those pics up soon too.

Hardware Removal from Atlantis

The shuttle returned safely to Kennedy and was rolled over to the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF). Once it was there, our hardware had to be disconnected from Atlantis' power supply and all our cables had to be tied up so our stuff could get lifted out of the orbiter and back into the Can.


I had to go in on a Sunday (boo) and tie up the cables after the KSC technicians demated the connectors. I got to use all the knots I learned in my height safety class (bowline knot, hitch knot, etc.) while hanging perilously over the shuttle in a little bucket. Here's some pics:

Looking to the back of the shuttle in the payload bay. Our hardware is all the orange things in the middle. We had to wear our bunny suits when working in there. LAME

That's me in the bucket! I got to ride around in it and finish securing all the harnesses

Me working...see, i actually DO work down here

Shuttle Ferry Flight

So the mission's over and the shuttle was supposed to land on Friday in KSC. Problem is, it has been raining there all week and will probably continue into the weekend. That's OK with me because if they can't land in Kennedy, they land in California which means 12 extra days at the beach!


Friday comes and goes and they wave off landing till saturday.


Wave off saturday too.


FINALLY...after almost a week of doing NOTHING (all EVAs were finished Monday and all our equipment was off) we finally get the OK to land in California. sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

The 747 sucessfully landed in KSC and we decided to take a field trip to the landing facility to snap some pics of everything.

When we were snapping pictures, we were also getting eaten alive by dinner plate sized mosquitos. Need to remember the bug spray next time

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!

Cool VAB pics

I was browsing the pictures taken by the photo staff and i came across these cool pictures of when Atlantis was being lifted in the VAB, enjoy!

Atlantis rolling into the VAB

Starting to lift the shuttle

Cool hovering shot before Atlantis goes vertical

Vertical

Roll Out!!!

Today was roll out day for Atlantis! I scouted out a nice spot in the LCC (launch control center) parking lot. Here are some starting off pics:










Nice spot, huh? Well after a couple minutes of squeezing my camera lens through the fence, i realized 'Hey, I can get on the other side of the fence!'



So I did, and snapped these pics!

You can see the Pad A just to the right of the MLP.

After watching that all morning...it was time for lunch! After lunch, i saw that the stack made it to the pad so Greg and I drove out there to take more pics. It only took about 4 hours to get there, which was quick. I guess the normal 5 hour trip is to Pad B because that one is a bit farther. Greg and I drove around Pad A and took pictures the whole way:

Go Atlantis!

Looking down some old railroad tracks at the pad. Dunno what the tracks were for...

You can see the VAB at the far right of the picture.

So that's roll out! I thought the crawler was moving a lot faster than I imagined it did. Here's a video i took to show how fast it was going. I also have a video that shows how far it went in an hour...not that far.

I took waaaaaaaaay more pics than i put up here. I put them on my facebook for everyone to see.

We'll be loading the can up soon...which means i'll be all over the pad structure! Sweet!