Vehicle Assembly Building

NASA’s Crawler Transporter 2 was originally designed to carry Saturn V rockets during the Apollo program nearly 60 years ago. The aging giant recently got a much-needed upgrade for supporting the Artemis SLS megarocket, beating its twin vehicle for a world record.China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonOn Wednesday, Guinness World Records presented NASA teams at the Kennedy Space Center with a certificate confirming that, at a whopping 6.65 million pounds (3 million kilograms), Crawler Transporter 2 is the world’s…

SLS at the Kennedy launch pad on November 4. Photo: NASAMonday, November 14 was supposed to be the day that the Space Launch System finally takes flight, but a late-season tropical storm has forced NASA to bump the launch back, but thankfully not by a whole lot. The space agency opted to leave SLS on the launch pad, saying it’s designed to withstandstorms of this magnitude. Star Wars: Shatterpoint Announcement Trailer02:27The First Things To Do In VR, Part 3Yesterday 9:39AMI’m in the Eastern Time Zone, so I was all ready…

SLS at the Florida launch pad with Crawler-transporter 2 in the foreground. Photo: NASANASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida has entered into a hurricane preparedness mode as Subtropical Storm Nicole threatens the peninsula. At the same time, the space agency says its 321-foot-tall SLS rocket will remain at the launch pad—at least for now. NOAA is currently tracking Nicole, saying the stormwill produce heavy rains by Wednesday night and Thursday across the Florida peninsula, and it’s projecting the arrival of tropical…

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket shortly after arriving at the Kennedy launch pad earlier today. Photo: NASA/Joel KowskyThe towering Space Launch System is back at Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, following a nine-hour trek from the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building. The agency is targeting November 14 for the rocket’s first launch, an event that will kick off the Artemis 1 mission and NASA’s return to the Moon.Could this be it? Might this finally be the last time NASA has to cart the…

The Space Launch System prior to being rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building on September 26.Photo: NASAAfter two launch scrubs, an impromptu tanking test, and an awful hurricane, NASA is once again preparing for the inaugural launch of its Space Launch System. The new targeted launch date for the Artemis 1 mission is Monday, November 14, with a 69-minute launch window that opens at 12:07 a.m. ET, as NASA announced today in a blog post. In the event of a scrub, backup launch opportunities exist on Wednesday,…

The SLS rocket (far right) arriving at the Vehicle Assembly Building on the morning of Tuesday, September 27.Photo: NASAAt first it was technical hurdles, but now a natural disaster has forced a delay to NASA’s Artemis 1 mission. With the rocket tucked inside the space agency’s gigantic assembly building and with normal ground operations set to resume this week, Space Launch Systemwon’t take flight until November 12 at the earliest. Hurricane Ian laid waste to much of Florida last week, resulting in the loss of life,…

NASA’s SLS rocket at Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center.Photo: NASAWith Hurricane Ian threatening the Florida peninsula, NASA has opted to transport its 321-foot-tall Space Launch System to the Vehicle Assembly Building where the Artemis rocket and Orion spacecraft will be safe from potentially damaging winds. On Saturday, NASA scrapped its plans to perform the third launch attempt of its SLS rocket due to a tropical storm brewing in the Caribbean. Today, the space agency announced that it would transport the SLS…

SLS at the Kennedy Space Center launch pad. Image: NASAIan, the ninth named tropical storm of the current Atlantic hurricane season, has foiled NASA’s plan to launch the Artemis 1 mission on Tuesday September 27. As late as Friday afternoon, NASA officials were casually dismissing the Caribbean storm system, but the space agency has since smartly concluded that Tropical Ian, as the system is now called, is something to be concerned about. In a blog post published this morning, NASA said it’s “foregoing a launch…

SLS at the launch pad in Florida. Photo: NASAWe’ve got some good news and some bad news. Space Force has granted NASA’s request for an extension to launch the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket—yay—but a tropical storm is brewing in the Atlantic, which could threaten its scheduled launch on Tuesday, September 27.NASA finally got the Space Force waiver it was seeking, as John Blevins, SLS chief engineer, told reporters earlier this afternoon. The space agency can now proceed with a launch on either September 27 or October 2.…

SLS on the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo: NASAA serious and unmanageable hydrogen leak prevented NASA from launching its SLS rocket on Saturday. Teams continue to evaluate the reason for the second failed launch attempt, but NASA says the rocket will have to return to the Vehicle Assembly Building to undergo safety checks.For rocket scientists, hydrogen is an important propellant, but it’s also a serious pain in the ass. It’s the tiniest molecule in the universe, and as such, it has a propensity to…