john f. kennedy space center brevard county, florida - Environmental ...

Space Shuttle Program Historic Properties 4-11
NASA Kennedy Space Center
the MLP. The Space Shuttle and MLP are then rolled out to the pad on the Crawler. At
the pad, payloads may be installed.
Following launch, and after about two minutes into the flight, the two SRBs burn out and
jettison. A series of parachutes slow their fall into the Atlantic Ocean, where they are
recovered by the Liberty Star and Freedom Star (Photo 4.2) which tow them back to
CCAFS in and around Hangar AF. Here, at the SRB Disassembly Facility, special
equipment lifts the SRBs from the water. They are then washed and disassembled into the
four main segments and aft skirt and forward skirt assemblies. After cleaning, the main
casings are placed on railroad cars for shipment by train to the manufacturer in Utah,
where they are reloaded with propellant. The new and reloaded SRB segments are
received at the RPSF located just north of the VAB. Inspection, rotation, and aft booster
buildup occur here. Refurbishment and subassembly of inert SRB hardware takes place at
the SRB ARF located south of the VAB. Completed aft skirt assemblies from the ARF
are integrated with the booster aft segments at the Rotation/Processing Building. The two
nearby Surge Buildings are used to store the SRB segments until they are moved to the
VAB for integration. The retrieval ships also retrieve the parachutes from the ocean,
hauling them in on large reels. The reels are then taken to the Parachute Refurbishment
Facility, where the parachutes are unspooled, washed, dried and stored in canisters for
eventual reuse.
Figure 4.1 illustrates the standard work flow.
Photo 4.2. Retrieval ship Freedom Star releasing SRB at Hangar AF.
(Source: NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center, 05PD-1788)
October 2007
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