Mobile Launch Platform storage area

USA / Florida / Titusville /
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One of three platforms built for the Apollo moon program is stored here when not in use, the Mobile Launch Platform (MLP) carried both the Saturn V and its launch support tower (with its associated "swing arms") from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. After the lunar flights, a MLP was modified with a so-called "milkstool" assembly to allow engineers and technicians to service the shorter Saturn IB using the Saturn V tower. After Apollo-Soyuz in 1975, two of the MLPs were converted for Shuttle use, with the tower removed and placed as permanent structures out at the pad and two additional holes cut into the platform as exhaust ports for the two Solid Rocket Boosters (the Shuttle's main engines used the Apollo-Saturn exhaust port). In the 1990's, the remaining MLP from Apollo-Saturn (with the "milkstool" modification) was converted to a third Shuttle MLP, allowing NASA to have two Orbiters on the pad at the same time, while a third Orbiter can be assembled in the VAB at the same time. It also serves as an "insurance" in the case a MLP is destroyed in a launch pad accident.

When this tag was created, an MLP was present, however updates to the aerial pictures occured when it was en route back from LC-39B, following the launch of STS-116
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Coordinates:   28°35'24"N   80°39'9"W

Comments

  • These crawlers where origionally desighned for quarrying but nasa (being really good at finding potential in the smallest things) decided hey can we use those to move the worlds biggest moonshot. These gargantuine things are the true defonition of a high roller
This article was last modified 13 years ago