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

Space Shuttle Program Historic Properties 6-8
NASA Kennedy Space Center
The VAB is located at the junction of the Crawlerway, the Towway, and Transporter
Road. It was originally built to support the vertical assembly of the Saturn launch
vehicles used for the Apollo, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz programs. It was designed by a
combination of four New York architectural and engineering firms, organized in 1962 as
URSAM after the first letter in each of the companies’ names. Construction of the VAB
was completed by Blount Brothers Construction Corporation, the American Bridge
Division of U.S. Steel, and three California firms, Morrison-Knudsen Co., Inc., Perini
Corp., and Paul Hardeman, Inc. It was structurally completed in June 1965, and interior
work, including the construction of work platforms, was started in 1966. In 1976, the
VAB was reconfigured to support the Space Shuttle Program. Tracks into High Bays 2
and 4 were a 1977 addition to the miles of track originally built in the 1960s (Spaceport
News, 1978, Volume 17, Number, page 1).
Photo 6.2. Space Shuttle vehicle in VAB.
(Source: Archaeological Consultants, Inc., 2006)
The steel-frame building is clad with metal sheeting, and has a flat roof and poured
concrete slab floor. The interior is divided into a High Bay and a Low Bay. The High Bay
measures approximately 418 ft in length, 513 ft in width, and 524 ft in height. It contains
four cells, each with its own doorway for the ingress of the Space Shuttle, the MLP, and
the missile crawler, and the egress of the combination of these items. Each door measures
150 ft in width and 465 ft in height, and includes electrically operated horizontal rolling
and vertical lift sections. There are also two 325-ton and two 250-ton overhead cranes.
High Bays 1 and 3, which face east, are used for the integration and stacking of the
complete Space Shuttle vehicle atop the MLP. High Bays 2 and 4, located on the west
side of the building, are used for storage and processing of the Shuttle's external tank.
High Bay 2 is also used as contingency storage (safe haven) for the orbiters, and High
October 2007
Archaeological Consultants, Inc.