Schweiss Installs Hydraulic Doors at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39

April 25, 2017 – Merritt Island, Florida – Schweiss Hydraulic Doors announced the completion of two major door installations at Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, FL. The doors equip a hangar responsible for storing reusable rockets at Launch Complex 39, where the rockets lift off, land on ocean drones and are then returned to the space center for reuse.

This project, in particular, required a significant amount of headroom for properly moving the rockets in and out of the hangar area. The doors are around six and seven stories high, respectively, and represent the largest installations in Schweiss’s history.

Specs

The larger door is 90 feet wide and 60 feet tall, while the smaller is 40 feet wide and 69 feet tall. Powering each door requires tremendous effort, with the larger door utilizing 31 liftstraps, 3-phase motors, auto-latches and four bottom-drive 480 volt. Three motors, 16 liftstraps, an external truss and five internal trusses are used to lift the smaller door.

Cape Canaveral, the area across from where the space center is located, offers access to a variety of launch types, including low and medium inclination orbits for satellites and supply missions to the ISS (International Space Station). In the coming years, the site could play an increasingly important role in moon missions, geostationary orbits, and interplanetary travel for entrepreneurship and space tourism.

Kennedy Space Center was formed in 1962 and is renown for having been the launch site of the Apollo missions between 1967 and 1973.