Vehicle Assembly Building
The Vehicle Assembly Building (originally the Vertical Assembly Building), or VAB, is a large building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), designed to assemble large pre-manufactured space vehicle components, such as the massive Saturn V, the Space Shuttle and the Space Launch System, and stack them vertically onto one of three mobile launcher platforms used by NASA. As of March 2022, the first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket was assembled inside in preparation for the Artemis 1 mission, launched on November 16, 2022.
| Vehicle Assembly Building | |
|---|---|
Location within Florida Vehicle Assembly Building (the United States) | |
| Former names | Vertical Assembly Building |
| General information | |
| Type | Integration facility |
| Town or city | Brevard County, Florida |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 28°35′11″N 80°39′5″W |
| Completed | 1966 |
| Owner | NASA |
| Height | 526 ft (160 m) |
| Dimensions | |
| Diameter | 716 ft × 518 ft (218 m × 158 m) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 1 |
| Floor area | 8 acres (32,000 m2) |
| Design and construction | |
| Main contractor | Morrison-Knudsen |
Vehicle Assembly Building | |
| Location | Kennedy Space Center Florida, U.S. |
| Nearest city | Titusville |
| Area | 8 acres (3 ha) |
| Built | 1966 |
| Architect | https://www.urbahn.com |
| Architectural style | Industrial |
| MPS | John F. Kennedy Space Center MPS |
| NRHP reference No. | 99001642 |
| Added to NRHP | January 21, 2000 |
At 129,428,000 cu ft (3,665,000 m3), it is the eighth-largest building in the world by volume as of 2022. The building is at Launch Complex 39 at KSC, 149 miles (240 km) south of Jacksonville, 219 miles (352 km) north of Miami, and 50 miles (80 km) due east of Orlando, on Merritt Island on the Atlantic coast of Florida.
The VAB is the largest single-story building in the world, was the tallest building (526 ft or 160 m) in Florida until 1974, and is the tallest building in the United States outside an urban area.