NASA – Vehicle Assembly Building
NASA Vehicle Assembly Building
This is the world famous Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. This is the building where the Space Shuttle and the Apollo Rockets where stood up on the mover that brought them out to the launch pad. To the left of the launch pad, you can see the new launch tower for the Orion rockets.
This image is taken from across the Indian River in a town called Titusville.
The vehicle assembly building was completed in 1965 and was originally built for the assembly of Saturn V rockets in a protected environment. After the Appollo program, the building was refitted to be used for the Space Shuttles and is ready for any and all future modes of space travel.
The American flag painted on the building was the largest in the world when added in 1976 as part of United States Bicentennial celebrations. It is 209 feet high, and 110 feet wide. Each of the stars on the flag is 6 feet across, the blue field is the size of a regulation basketball court, and each of the stripes is 9 feet wide.
There are four entries to the bays located inside the building, which are the four largest doors in the world. Each door is 456 feet high, has 7 vertical panels and 4 horizontal panels, and takes 45 minutes to completely open or close.
To the left of the Vehicle Assembly Building, you can see the SLS mobile launcher. The SLS mobile launcher is the ground structure that will be used to assemble, process and launch NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft from Launch Pad 39B
