Vehicle Assembly Building

A node of the International Space Station in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building. Larger Version

The Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, is a very large building, at the Kennedy Space Center, half way between Jacksonville, and Miami in Florida.

It was originally built to assemble the stages of the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo program. It is now used to mate the Space shuttle with its boosters. Once assembled, the rocket is moved on a moving platform to Launch Complex 39. The VAB's interior volume is so vast that it has its own weather system.

One indicator of the building's scale is that each of the stars on the US flag painted on the building is 6 feet (1.8 metres) across.