Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Cape Canaveral Webcam Feed Live at Kennedy Space Center as Space Shuttle Endeavour returns Home

As NASA prepared for the arrival of Endeavour, the shuttle Atlantis was rolled out to the launch pad for its final flight, set for July 8. Thousands of Kennedy Space Center workers and their families gathered to watch.


Location information:

The John F Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is the U.S. government installation that manages and operates America's astronaut launch facilities. Currently serving as the base for the country's three space shuttles, the NASA field center also conducts unmanned civilian launches from adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (operated by the 45th Space Wing). KSC has been the launch site for every U.S. human space flight since 1968. Its iconic Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) is the fourth-largest structure in the world by volume.

Located on Merritt Island, Florida, the center is north-northwest of Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic Ocean, midway between Miami and Jacksonville. It is 34 miles (55 km) long and roughly 6 miles (10 km) wide, covering 219 square miles (570 km2). A total of 13,500 people worked at the center as of 2008.

STS-60 shuttle launch from Pad 39A on February 3, 1994All launch operations are conducted at Launch Complex 39 (LC-39), where the shuttle's major components (orbiter, external fuel tank and booster rockets) arrive, are stacked (mated) and checked out inside the VAB; then moved to Pad 39A for launch. Shuttles were also launched from adjoining Pad 39B until 2007, when it was modified for the 2009 Ares I-X launch. Both pads are on the ocean, 3 miles (5 km) east of the VAB. The Shuttle Landing Facility, among the longest runways in the world, is just to the north. From 1969–1972, LC-39 was the departure point for all six Apollo manned moon landing missions using the Saturn V, the largest and most powerful operational launch vehicle in history.