#mobile launch platform

Enterprise on a mobile launch platform at Vandenberg Space Launch Complex Six - March 20 1981

This dramatic view looking directly down onto the Shuttle atop the Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP) and crawler-transporter was taken from the VAB roof approximately 525 feet (160 meters) above the ground.

The rising sun and some scattered clouds provide a picturesque backdrop for the Space Shuttle Discovery as it travels along the crawlerway toward Launch Pad 39A in preparation for the STS-82 mission. The Shuttle is on a Mobile Launcher Platform, and the entire assemblage is being carried by a large, tracked vehicle called the crawler transporter. A seven-member crew will perform the second servicing of the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope (HST) during the 10-day STS-82 flight, which is targeted for a Feb. 11 liftoff.

Space Shuttle Endeavour and the Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP) start backing through the gate to Launch Pad 39B after a cracked cleat was discovered on the crawler-transporter. Workers near the pad (behind the crawler track) look at the cleats. The vehicle, which moves the MLP and Shuttle at about 1 mph, has a leveling system designed to keep the top of the Space Shuttle vertical while negotiating the 5 percent grade leading to the top of the pad. When the Shuttle-MLP are back on level ground, the crawler tracks will be inspected and the broken cleat repaired.

A massive 19 million pounds-plus (8.6 million kilograms) of Space Shuttle, support and transport hardware inch toward Launch Pad 39A from the Vehicle Assembly Building. The fully asssembled Space Shuttle Endeavour, minus its payloads, weighs about 4.5 million pounds (2 million kg.); the mobile launcher platform, on which it was assembled and from which it will lift off, weighs 9.25 million pounds (4.19 million kg.); and the crawler-transporter carrying the platform and Shuttle checks in at around 6 million pounds.

Space Shuttle Columbia sits atop its Mobile Launcher Platform in the open doorway of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The Shuttle never left the VAB due to a steering problem on the crawler-transporter under the MLP. The problem was a faulty bearing in the steering linkage of Power Truck Drive D, which was detected before the C-T left the VAB. Rollout has been rescheduled for Jan. 24.

The first Space Shuttle vehicle destined to fly in space moves toward Pad A at Complex 39, where it will be launched. The STS-1 vehicle - consisting of America's first reusable spaceship, Columbia, the external propellant tank and twin solid rocket boosters - was assembled on a Mobile Launcher Platform in the Vehicle Assembly Building.