Beyond a fertile field of satellite communication antennas at Kennedy Space Center, an Atlas V rocket launches a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS; sounds like TEE-dress). The thoughtfully composed image recorded on the evening of January 30. Image © Ben Cooper (Launch Photography). Used with permission.
Space shuttle Endeavour is seen atop NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified 747 Jumbo jetliner, at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday, Sept. 17, 2012 in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
[WPDATE: new videos after the jump]
The Launch Operations Center in Florida became operational on July 1, 1962. The name was later changed to John F. Kennedy Space Center in honor of the president’s vision for space exploration and of Americans visiting the Moon. This video is a tribute at the many launches and space exploration highlights that occurred at KSC.
Technicians in the aft portion of space shuttle Atlantis connect three replica shuttle main engines (RSME), in Orbiter Processing Facility-1 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image credit: NASA, Glenn Benson
The flight deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour, the youngest shuttle and the second to last ever launched. The numerous panels and displays allowed the computer-controlled orbiter to enter the top of Earth’s atmosphere at greater than the speed of sound and (thirty minutes later) land on a runway like an airplane. Image Credit Ben Cooper (Launch Photography)
Fifty years ago, on February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He also was one of the first humans to study the planet from space. NASA Photograph by John Glenn. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.
With space shuttle Atlantis’ 25-year spaceflight career now in the history books, its next mission — to inform and inspire generations of visitors to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida — is one step closer to reality.
It is very complicated to fly into space. Those pictures of the shuttle Atlantis cockpit reveal just how astronauts confronted by a huge array of buttons and screens.
In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians inspect under NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission aeroshell, where the wheels of the rover Curiosity can be seen. Image credit NASA
All six Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne space shuttle main engines from
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