Shuttle Launch Pad Towers Coming Down

[ErnstBlofeld]

Aviation Week and Space Technology/Irene Klotz:

Workers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center have begun removing pieces of the space shuttle’s Rotating Service Structure at Launch Pad 39B as part of an ongoing demolition project aimed at creating a clean, multi-use pad for future government and commercial vehicles.

With both the House and Senate aligned on a new blueprint for NASA — though appropriations to pay for the proposed $19 billion Fiscal 2011 budget are pending — the agency’s follow-on human spaceflight programs are becoming clearer. Kennedy expects to receive $1.33 billion over the next three years to transform its shuttle-centric facilities into infrastructure that can be used by a variety of future users and vehicles. Some of that work already is under way, funded through the Constellation Moon program, which is being renamed and recast under the new exploration strategy.

Pad 39B was modified for the test flight of Constellation’s Ares 1-X booster last year, but many shuttle-unique systems were left intact, including its rotating and fixed service structures. Over the next nine months, the steel towers will be cut apart, removed in pieces and hauled away to be recycled, leaving the pad with a concrete surface, the water sound-suppression system and three 594-ft. lightning masts that were installed as part of the Constellation program.

Final details of what the pad will look like are unknown.

[ErnstBlofeld]

Pad 39A on the left and Pad 39B on the right.