Atlantis on the Move, Take 2!

After the excitement last week Atlantis spent 8 days in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) getting connected to the other shuttle pieces. Thursday morning it was time for another big event: rollout to the launch pad. All of our launches now will be from Pad 39-A, which means the shuttle has to be moved about 3.4 miles. The hazy picture below is from the roof of the VAB. It shows the pad and the road the shuttle takes to get to it.

Photo: Sam M.

Rollout takes a long time because we only move the shuttle at around 1 mile per hour. If you started riding your bike at First Motion (the time the shuttle begins moving) you would probably get to the pad first and still have to wait a while for it catch up. Since it goes so slow Myca and I took our time getting out there to see it.

We drove out half an hour after first motion. The shuttle had moved far enough away from the VAB that you could see it clearly from up the road several miles away.

A few minutes later we were in the VAB parking lot as the shuttle looked like it was sitting between some trees. We took a picture and walked closer to find a crowd of other people who had come out to watch.

We also walked around a little to find other views of the shuttle in motion.


The "road" the shuttle takes to the pad is called the Crawlerway. The rocks covering it get crushed under the weight of the vehicle and its carrier as they move down it. I can't imagine 20 million pounds well enough to come up with a good comparison, but one thing I know for sure is that I wouldn't want to be one of those rocks. In this picture you can see the difference between the ones it ran over and the ones it didn't as it came out of the VAB.

Myca and I then went across the street toward the Kennedy Space Center Press site. On the way we passed the ET boat.

The Press site is what you see on TV a lot because it's where the big countdown clock is. The clock is off because we're not close enough to launch right now, but it should light up again 3-4 days before liftoff.


Atlantis took around 7 hours to get to the launch pad. After it arrived Myca and I went out with one of my coworkers for a look.



The big grey thing on the left side is the Rotating Service Structure, or RSS. It covers the shuttle while it's on the pad before launch. The few hours we were there are the only time the shuttle can be seen like this until they move the RSS again before launch.


We stayed out until it got dark and watched as they moved the RSS over the shuttle. It was awesome to see it all lit up like that.

I'll do a better walk around of the pad another week, but I wanted to put up some good pictures of Myca with the whole shuttle out there. Thanks this week go to Tony for walking around with me, and for his help with some of the pictures. Saturday seems to be my update day, so I'll be back next weekend with more pictures as Myca and I explore the Kennedy Space Center. See you then!