Kennedy’s Orbiter Processing Facility
I recently visited Kennedy’s Orbiter Processing Facility
to find out how a highly skilled team of shuttle technicians
spent the past few months preparing Endeavor for STS-126.
(upbeat techno music)
I’m here inside the Orbiter Processing Facility
with Ken Tenbusch, NASA flow director here
at the Kennedy Space Center.
_ Hi, Damon.
_ Ken, nice to see you today.
_ Nice to meet you.
_ ken, can you tell us what exactly is shuttle flow?
_ Shuttle flow is taking that vehicle
from the time that it has landed,
its rolled over here to the Orbiter Processing Facility
and all the processing here,
along with external tank processing
that’s happening at the same time over
in the Vehicle Assembly Building.
And then, the solid rocket booster processing
that’s going on, as well as the stacking,
and getting that already and checked out.
And then bringing all of those components together
in one overall integrated shuttle vehicle.
And then once you’re at that point, you do a checkout
in the Vehicle Assembly Building.
Roll that out to the pad.
Do all the check out there.
Load the vehicle, get it ready for flight.
And then you basically a processing flow,
from start to finish from that landing
all the way on through to launch.