Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, English for the John F. Kennedy Space Center ) is the NASA space station on Merritt Iceland in Florida. The KSC is located northwest of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station of the USAF and is adjacent to this. From here start since December 1968 all manned space flights of the United States - the first Apollo missions and 1981-2011 the Space Shuttle.
Location
The 55 km long and 10 km wide area covers an area of approximately 567 km ². It is located at the geographical coordinates 28 ° 35 '7 "N, 80 ° 39 ' 3" W28.585277777778 - 80.650833333333Koordinaten: 28 ° 35 '7 "N, 80 ° 39 ' 3" W.
In KSC 17,000 people work. Thus, it provides for the region a significant economic factor dar. With a large visitor center and guided tours of the grounds, the KSC is also a major attraction for tourists.
Since many areas of the site are blocked for security reasons, not least to the public, the site also serves as a venue for many protected wildlife. The northern tip of the island is designated as a nature reserve ( Merritt Iceland National Wildlife Refuge ).
Directly adjacent to an upstream southeast peninsula is the site of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station ( CCAFS ) of the U.S. Air Force. There satellites for military as well as commercial purposes started. Until October 1968 took off from there and the manned space missions by the U.S. under the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.
Construction
The Kennedy Space Center consists of four areas: the KSC Industrial Area, the Launch Complex 39, with its two launch pads LC - 39A and LC - 39B Shuttle Landing Facility as well as the. There is also a visitor center for tourists.
In the KSC Industrial Area Administration Building at NASA and suppliers are housed. Here also the Space Station Processing Facility for the International Space Station, as well as the Operations & Checkout Building is the astronauts live in the upper floor, when they may be at or before the start of testing in Florida.
Launch Complex 39
The launch complex 39, shown in the picture on the right was built for the Apollo flights to the moon. In the foreground, at the bottom, are the workshop building and the control center, some left the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF ), were maintained in the space shuttle landed. All outstanding in the center is the bot Vehicle Assembly Building ( VAB), the assembly areas ("High Bay " ) for three launchers from Saturn V and later served for the assembly of the Space Shuttle with the external tank and solid rocket boosters. On the south side of the main building is a lower workshop building ("Low Bay " ) follows, among other things, for the main engines of the shuttle. The VAB is 160 m high and stands on an area of 218 × 158 m.
Two gravel tracks for the major crawler - transporter lead from the VAB from about six miles north-east in the direction of the starting positions A ( South) and B (North ) on the Atlantic coast. The KSC has two crawler transporters, with which the unbetankten start and finished shuttles are driven to the starting points. It was an engineering feat for its time, the 110 -meter Saturn V rockets upright not only to drive to the starting points, but also to move the 5% slope to the launch ramps up accidents.
Launch pads LC - 39A and LC - 39B
The two launch pads LC - 39A and LC - 39B are located a few meters behind the Atlantic beach, about 2.7 kilometers apart. Since the Space Shuttle by far do not have the height of the Saturn V rocket, the original scaffold tower was shortened and now forms the (without lightning conductor rod) 81.3 m high Fixed Service Structure, run in all supply lines to the Space Shuttle. The Rotating Service Structure is like a guard around the Space Shuttle are screwed and serves, in addition to the weather protection, the loading of the transport of the orbiter hatch.
To protect the equipment as well as the launching vehicle from the destructive sound waves, more than one million liters of water are sprayed on the lower area at the start in a few seconds. Nevertheless launch of the Saturn V in the 20 km distant city of Titusville were bursting windows regularly.
In the northeastern and north-western corner are the round fuel tanks for hydrogen and oxygen, each containing about 3.3 million liters of chilled liquid. The external tank of the space shuttle was filled because of the risk of explosion just before the start of the two cylindrical tanks.
LC - 39B stands for the shuttle program is no longer available because it was converted for launches of the Ares I rocket. The remaining shuttle flights were carried out only by LC - 39A.
Shuttle Landing Facility
3.2 km northwest of the VAB is the Shuttle Landing Facility ( SLF), a 4.6 km long landing strip for the U.S. Space Shuttles. If the orbiter landed at a different location, it will piggyback with a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft brought to KSC and separated directly on the runway with a special lifting device from the transport plane and driven to an OPF.
Visitor center
The so-called KSC Visitor Complex, just outside the KSC serves as an information center for tourists. The commercial entertainment in the form of an IMAX 3D theaters must not obscure the fact that the visitor center holds a wealth of interesting information about the history of space travel in the USA. In the so-called Rocket Garden are rockets of all generations, starting with the successor of the German V2 and ( in the adjacent museum) used the landing capsule of a spaceship from the 1960s issued.
The Visitor Complex offers tours of its exhibitions and is the starting point for different bus tours over the KSC area, where also the " Apollo / Saturn V Center" is activated. There was a possibility of the two remaining Saturn V rockets. In a small theater, a Saturn V mission from the start is adjusted to landing on the moon. In addition, bus tours to the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad and LC - 39A are offered.
Since May 2007, visitors to the "Shuttle Launch Experience ," recreate the forces at the start of a Space Shuttle, which occur. In addition, the space shuttle " Atlantis" is on display as a museum piece in the visitor center since the end of June 2013.