The primary business at the Kennedy Space Center is preparing and launching
manned and unmanned space vehicles. The majorityof America's unmanned rockets
are launched on the other side of the Banana River at the Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station. Included in America's fleet of unmanned rockets are
the Delta, Atlas-Centaur, and the Titan. A Titan Centaur was used
to deploy the two Viking probes to Mars in 1976 and the Voyager I &
II satellites to Neptune.
<~Atlas <~Delta <~Titan
Much of the public focus today involves human space flight. Our Shuttle fleet includes four orbiters: Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. The Space Shuttle actually comprises four major components: the two solid rocket boosters, the large orange external tank, and the orbiter itself. The entire system weighs approximately four and a half million pounds at launch and provides about seven million pounds of thrust. It is amazing that in just eight and a half minutes, this 220,000-pound orbiter will go from a standing start to almost 10 times the speed of a rifle bullet.
<~space shuttle<~space shuttle landing<~another view of the shuttle landing
<~runway safing
The shuttle orbiter arrives at KSC in one of two ways. It either lands
from space on our 15,000-foot runway or it is ferried on the back of a
Boeing 747. As a result of orbiter modifications including modified carbon-carbon
brakes and use of a drag chute, the Kennedy Space Center is now the prime
landing site for the shuttle fleet.
After a landing at KSC, the orbiter must be made safe for the engineers
and technicians to work around it. The KSC recovery team takes over control
and responsibility of the orbiter after the astronauts exit the crew module.
If it arrives on the 747 after landing at another site, such as Edwards
Air Force Base (EAFB) in California, it has to be removed using the huge
11-story-high Mate-Demate Device at the Shuttle Landing Facility. This
operation is usually performed around midnight when winds are the most
calm.
<~Mate-Demate
Device
Click
Here For Some
More
Cool Pictures!
Here
Are Some Websites To Find
Some
More Fun Information:
https://www.angelfire.com/pa4/huth3/
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/
Last Updated: May 15, 2003