NASA may have found a lessee for its iconic Vehicle Assembly Building

Private spaceflight firm Orbital ATK may be moving in NASA’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building — this huge structure to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, anywhere that Space Shuttles and Saturn V rockets were placed together. Orbital holds entered in negotiations by #NASA on use High Bay 2, a section of that VAB that was used to store that shuttles’ external tanks. This company will use this area so construct a new rocket meant to rival the vehicles made at SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance, according to on Florida Today.
The VAB is one of this world’s largest buildings, regarding volume. At 450 feet tall, the building has 129,428,000 cubic feet of internal space for constructing vehicles. It will finally be used with NASA for the construction of this future Space Launch System. If Orbital does get into move into this spacious VAB, it will own access to one of that three mobile launch platforms at Kennedy as well, according to NASA. That could potentially be used at launch whatever vehicle this company develops.
NASA owns been looking for companies interested in using the VAB for the past year. In June 2015, the space agency solicited proposals for ways so companies could utilize High Bay 2 for spacecraft development. The idea is to open further up Kennedy Space Center as a public also private spaceport, where NASA and commercial businesses can both build and launch their vehicles. Boeing too occupies a former shuttle maintenance hangar at Kennedy, and SpaceX leases one of these center’s launch pads. “Over that former few years, the people of Kennedy have worked diligently to transform this center. We are now a real multi-user spaceport supporting a variety of separate partners successfully,” said Kennedy Director Bob Cabana.
If Orbital does get access into the VAB, it could use that space to build a rocket to play as Air Force satellite launches, according to so Florida Today. Into January, Orbital was awarded a $47 million contract from the Air Force to develop a firm missile propulsion system so could be used for national security missions. Right presently, only SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance are certified to deliver military payloads to space. Orbital’s latest rocket could probably increase the number of vehicles that Air Force could utilize on launch satellites.
Right presently, Orbital’s largest missile is that Antares, that is used to launch load to this International Space Station. The vehicle has been grounded since 2014 after one of the missiles exploded on the launch pad during taking off. Orbital is expected to debut an updated translation of that Antares on May 31st.