Launch Pad B Completes Makeover for Ares I-X Launch

After two years of design and construction work, Launch Pad 39B (Pad B) at Kennedy Space Center stands ready and waiting to host the launch of the Ares I-X test flight, currently scheduled for late October.

United Space Alliance was tasked by NASA to manage the transformation of Pad B from Shuttle to Ares I-X configuration. Project Manager Vince Cubero said the team is proud to be a part of taking the Human Space Flight Program to the next phase. “Removing structures and equipment that have been there for almost 30 years held a lot of significance for our employees, many of whom were here for the first Shuttle launch,” Cubero said.

Pad B, one of the sites of Saturn V and 1B launches nearly half a century ago, was last used for an Apollo/Soyuz mission in July of 1975, and has served the Shuttle Program since the launch of STS-51L in 1986.

The transformation of Pad B began with removal of the 70-foot lightning mast atop the Fixed Service Structure (FSS). A hammerhead crane machine room was removed from the FSS at the same time. Replacing the mast are three new 594-foot lightning towers surrounding the concrete pad. For the Ares I-X launch, only two of the towers will be in use, with a catenary wire running between those two towers and down to the ground.

Two new access platforms have been added to the Pad B launch tower. The first, located at the 275-foot level, will allow access to the upper stage. The Gaseous Oxygen hood (known as the beanie cap), which fit over the top of the Shuttle External Tank, and the third element truss that supported the hood had to be removed as part of this work.

A second platform, located at the 229-foot level, will provide access to the First Stage Avionics Module in the fifth segment simulator and was installed on the Rotating Service Structure (RSS). A third platform, located at the 220-foot level, is an existing platform that will provide access to the rocket’s safe-and-arm door and access to pyrotechnic devices.

The most complex modification project was the design and installation of the new Vehicle Stabilization System (VSS), which will dampen vehicle oscillation caused by wind forces while the rocket is sitting at the pad. The VSS, located between the 200- and 260-foot levels, will attach to the flight test vehicle when it is rolled out in October and will be disconnected and retracted prior to launch.

The VSS structure includes two arms that will swing into position on either side of the vehicle and attach to a clevis on the vehicle. Each arm has two damper subassemblies – a Y-damper assembly in the forward pivot arm and a Z-damper assembly in the aft truss. Each damper subassembly contains four 13-inch steel coil springs with a large shock absorber that act together to provide a dampening system.

A hydraulic console located on the launch tower controls the mechanisms for catching and releasing the vehicle, and for extending and retracting the arms. To accommodate the installation of the VSS, a few platforms had to be removed from the east side of the RSS, including the Orbiter access arm.

“Designing the VSS was challenging since we had to meet criteria based on a lot of unknowns, especially at the beginning,” said Tony Shibly, USA Ground Project Management, who coordinated work on both the VSS and the new access platforms. “As new data came in regarding the vehicle, we adjusted what we were doing. The team worked long and hard to meet the tight schedule and overcome technical difficulties, and they’ve proven they were ready for the challenge.”

The Environmental Control System (ECS) at the pad was also reconfigured to support the Ares I-X launch. This system of ducts and filters will provide conditioned air purge for the vehicle avionics in the Ares I-X Upper Stage Segments and for the First Stage Avionics Module. The new ECS system is a mixture of Pad B heritage ductwork combined with some new ductwork.

“What started out as a design consisting of a new telescoping umbilical was redesigned into fixed hard ducting routed through the developing VSS structure as its requirements matured,” said Mike Hadley, ECS Mod Project Manager.

“The ECS design team was challenged to accommodate the evolving design of the VSS structure while maintaining the partnered schedule, with the extra challenge of accommodating Orbiter Endeavour, which sat on Pad B in May while standing by as the rescue vehicle for the Hubble repair mission,” Hadley said.

Finally, USA provided engineering support for instrumenting the pad in order to measure acoustic forces, ignition overpressure and plume pressure environments at liftoff. Monitors have been placed at various locations on the FSS, the VSS and on the mobile launch platform. Data from these monitors will be used going forward in the design and development of the Ares Program launch structures.

All of the new structures and systems at the pad were subject to rigorous safety and reliability standards, and all have been tested, validated and certified.

Many of the structures that were removed from Pad B, such as the beanie cap and the Orbiter access arm with the White Room, have been placed in storage and eventually will be placed on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Center.

“The transformation of Pad B is one more example of how USA’s launch operations experience and capability can be used to help NASA transition to the next program,” said Anne Martt, USA Vice President, Constellation Program. “Our workforce is dedicated to making that transition as smooth and successful as possible.”

Put into operation in November 1967 with the launch of Apollo 4, the two Launch Complex 39 (LC39) launch pads have remained steadfast components of the human space flight program for more than 40 years with a combined total of 145 launches.

The life cycle of the LC39 launch pads began in the 1960s when NASA was considering a space program beyond the Mercury and Gemini missions that included a proposed lunar landing. The proposal included a vehicle checkout building a few miles away from the launch pad and a crawler transporter to carry a Mobile Launch Platform (MLP) to the pad.

The idea dated back to World War II, with the German’s military rockets and then the American Redstone and Jupiter Programs. It was adopted for the lunar project to reduce labor cost and the amount of time the Saturn V rocket and workers would spend exposed to inclement weather conditions, such as lightning, wind and the threat of hurricanes.

The original structure for the Kennedy Space Center launch pads provided the Saturn V rockets with a concrete pad to roll the rocket onto and a four story bisected flame trench to safely deflect the engine blast from the vehicle, crew and pad. A “blast room” was available beneath the pads in the event of an emergency. The astronauts could access a high-speed elevator to an escape tube into a rubber deceleration ramp that ended at thick steel doors leading into the room.

The Saturn rockets rolled out to the launch pad on one of three Launch Umbilical Towers (LUTs), which are the vertical umbilical towers atop the MLPs. Swing arms connect from the LUT to the rocket and release immediately prior to launch. Once secured on the pad, a large Mobile Service Structure (MSS) would move to the tower and provide structural access to the various levels of the rocket. Prior to launch, the MSS would roll back to its park site located near where the crawlerway makes the sharp north turn toward Pad B.

Following the completion of the Apollo Program, modifications to the launch pads began, employing many of the same components on the pad surfaces and structures recycled from the Apollo era.

Stan Russell, USA Planning and Integration, said the LUT became separate from the MLP and was re-created for the pads and a new MLP.

Selected sections from each LUT, the MLP and tower, were removed and used as the Fixed Service Structure (FSS) on the concrete surface of one for each pad.

The concept of the original MSS became a Rotating Service Structure (RSS) for the new program due to the need to cocoon the Shuttle to protect the tile and provide a method to install payloads.

The crawler continued to be the workhorse by carrying what became the MLP, after the vertical tower was removed. The MLP was modified to exhume one engine exhaust to three from its platform and support the two solid rocket motors that carried the weight for the shorter Shuttle “stack.”

The first launch from LC39 was from Pad A with the maiden flight of the Saturn V, which carried the unmanned Apollo 4 spacecraft in 1967 and was also used for the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle in 1981. Pad B was put into service for Apollo 10 in 1969. The Constellation Program will launch Ares I-X from Pad B this year.

Pad B will be demolished after the successful launch of Ares I-X, which is currently on the schedule for early 2010. A new launch pad, one similar to the Apollo Program, is scheduled to be complete in 2013, continuing the service of LC39 into another generation of explorers.

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