NASA Orbiter Processing Facilities: High-Tech Shuttle Garages

Image: Shuttle Columbia arrived at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility via the shuttle carrier aircraft in March 1979 after completing its ferry flight from Dryden Flight Research Center in California. Columbia then was towed into an OPF for processing for STS-1, NASA's first shuttle fight. Photo credit: NASA
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If home is where the heart is, then the heart and soul of NASA's space shuttle fleet reside in three custom-built, 29,000-square-foot buildings at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

They're formally called orbiter processing facilities (OPF), but routinely go by the names OPFs, bays, or hangars, and inside highly experienced technicians perform two-thirds of the work to prepare a shuttle for space.

The bays may be the highest-tech garages on the planet, where workers ready a spaceship for flight without scuffing it and huge cranes move tons of cargo into place. But it's also a place where staples are prohibited from the paperwork technicians work off of so the little pieces of metal don't accidentally become embedded in the shuttle's critical systems.

Fresh off Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility and back from a mission, shuttles are towed to their individual processing bays. In recent years, OPF-1 and OPF-2, which are connected by a 233-foot-long low bay, have been the residence of Atlantis and Endeavour, respectively. Across the street is OPF-3, the home base of Discovery. Once inside, technicians jack-and-level the shuttle to maintenance height where platforms and a main access bridge surround the spacecraft like a glove.

"Each high bay has a footprint of the orbiter, and when it rolls in, it has to fit to that footprint," said Wayne Bingham, a United Space Alliance, or USA, flow manager.

"We try to keep the platforms within a maximum distance of 6 to 8 inches, but a minimum of 4 inches."

NASA - Orbiter Processing Facilities: High-Tech Shuttle Garages



Image: In September 1983, technicians in Orbiter Processing Facility-2 inspect Spacelab-1 in the payload bay of shuttle Columbia. Photo credit: NASA
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Image: In OPF-2, technicians check out space shuttle Endeavour's payload bay before its final mission, STS-134. Photo credit: NASA/Frankie Martin
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Image: Shuttle Discovery's tail fin clears the hangar door of Orbiter Processing Facility-2 at the end of its 39th and final spaceflight mission, STS-133 in March 2011. Inside the OPF, Discovery will be prepared for future public display. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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Image: Workers watch as shuttle Atlantis slowly backs out of OPF-1 during its rollover to the Vehicle Assembly Building for its final mission, STS-135. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller
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