page_title: Vehicle Assembly Building
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Vehicle Assembly Building / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Complex 39 reflection shot of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) under construction with the Launch Control Center (LCC) and Service Towers as seen from across the Turning Basin.
context_page_description: The Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, is the large building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, designed to assemble the large pre-manufactured space vehicle components, such as the massive Saturn V and the Space Shuttle; and stack them vertically onto the mobile launcher platform and crawler-transporter. The future Space Launch System will also be assembled there.
  At 129,428,000 cubic feet it is one of the largest buildings in the world by volume. The building is at Launch Complex 39 at KSC, halfway between Jacksonville and Miami, and 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 in Florida until 1974, and is still the tallest building in the United States outside an urban area.
context_section_description: In 1963, NASA contracted the Morrison-Knudsen company to design and build the VAB. Construction began with driving the first steel foundation piles on Aug. 2, 1963. It was part of NASA's massive effort to send astronauts to the Moon for the Apollo program. Altogether, 4,225 pilings were driven down 164 feet to bedrock with a foundation consisting of 30,000 cubic yards (23,000 m³) of concrete. Construction of the VAB required 98,590 short tons (197,180,000 lb; 89,440,000 kg) of steel. The building was completed in 1966. The VAB is 526 feet (160.3 m) tall, 716 feet (218.2 m) long and 518 feet (157.9 m) wide. It covers 8 acres (32,000 m²), and encloses 129,428,000 cubic feet (3,665,000 m³) of space.
  Located on Florida's Atlantic coast, the building was constructed to withstand hurricanes and tropical storms. Despite this, it has received damage from several hurricanes (see below).
caption: VAB during construction (1965) with the three Mobile Launchers for the Saturn V rocket.
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