Tower Structure For NASA’s Space Launch System Rolled To Launch Pad 39B At Kennedy Space Center
By Stephen Clark, SpaceFlight Now // September 3, 2018
nearly 400-foot-tall tower
BREVARD COUNTY • KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA (SpaceFlight Now) – The towering structure to be used for liftoffs of NASA’s Space Launch System rolled from a construction site to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week, arriving at the seaside complex Friday for a week of fit checks.
The nearly 400-foot-tall tower, riding one of NASA’s huge diesel-powered crawler-transporters, departed a position north of the Vehicle Assembly Building to pad 39B on Thursday afternoon.
Running at an average speed of less than 1 mph, the crawler carried the mobile launch platform, specially designed for the SLS, along the same pathway covered in crushed river rock used by Saturn 5 moon rockets and space shuttles on their journeys to the launch pad.
The crawler-transporter paused Thursday night along the crawlerway, as planned, then resumed the trip Friday, before arriving atop the ramp at pad 39B at conclusion of the 4.4-mile (7.1-kilometer) rollout. NASA announced the mobile launch platform arrived at pad 39B at 2:43 p.m. EDT (1843 GMT) as jacks on the crawler-transporter lowered the tower atop pedestals at the launch complex.
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