KSC-2011-7921

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Jose Lopez, NASA Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) project manager, outlines the upgrades planned for the VAB to support NASA's forthcoming Space Launch System. Lopez' audience is made up of media representatives taking the 21st Century Ground Systems tour. Other stops on the tour include a crawler-transporter parked on the crawlerway, the new mobile launcher on Launch Pad 39B, and the Launch Control Center's Firing Room 1. These facilities and equipment will be used to prepare and launch NASA's new Orion spacecraft on the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket. The tour was arranged as part of prelaunch media activities for the agency's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) launch. Liftoff of MSL aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is planned during a launch window which extends from 10:02 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. EST on Nov. 26. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann