Space Shuttle rollout. Time-lapse footage of a Space Shuttle mated to its external tank (orange) and booster rockets (white), being mounted on the Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP) in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. The VAB, one of the largest buildings in the world and 160 metres high, is where NASA's largest launch systems are assembled. This footage shows the Space Shuttle on the MLP being moved by a crawler-transporter from the VAB to one of the launch pads at Launch Complex 39. The footage starts in the dark and covers a period of several hours. The average transport time from the VAB to the launch pads is around 5 hours. The Space Shuttle program operated from 1981 to 2011. |