Cape Canaveral, FL: Kennedy Space Port and Vehicle Assembly Building

Overview: (Satellite)

Vehicle Assembly Building: (Satellite)

Because they are so big, some of the parts for a rocket are shiped to the Trident Wharf using the RocketShip or the Pegasus Barge. The tall building with the two doors that go all the way up is the Vehicle Assembly building (VAB). (I thought that VAB stood for Vertical Assembly building.) The gravel roads are used by the Mobile Launcher Platforms to move the a rocket from the VAB to a launch pad (e.g. 39a). The low level building on the left is the Launch Control Center. Near the right side of this view is one of the Mobile Launcher Platforms parked in storage.

Street View, Feb 2012

Jorge Piquer, Jan 2023

Shaun McLane, Jul 2013

space
"Artist's rendering of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket being stacked inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. (Image credit: NASA)"
"The 525-foot-tall (160 meters) building — the largest single-story structure and the fourth-largest building by volume in the world — was used for 30 years to stack space shuttle orbiters with their boosters and external fuel tanks for 135 missions. Before then, the building's original purpose was to assemble the stages that formed the 363-foot (110 m) Saturn V rockets that launched astronauts to the moon."

CollectSpace
"Wide-angle view down the transfer aisle in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. (collectSPACE)"

I wonder what the crawler crane is for. The VAB has cranes inside to lift the components of the rocket into place.

Michael Needler, Nov 2018

William Russ posted

Here's a diagram of NASA's Class III railroad at the Kennedy Space Center.

During its first five years of operation, the railroad delivered over 30,000 carloads of aggregate that was used to construct the crawlerway that connected the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pads at LC-39. During the Apollo program, the railroad regularly transported the 56 carloads of propellant that was required to fuel each Saturn V rocket.

During the Space Shuttle era the railroad was used to send segments of the reusable solid rocket boosters (SRB) from the Thiokol plant in Utah back again for refurbishment after Space Shuttle launches and recovery. A total of 24 cars were devoted to transporting the SRBs. (source: Wikipedia)