Preliminary Hurricane Damage Assessement from NASA Kennedy Space Center

"The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) has the most visible damage. According to Kennedy the damage can be seen on the South and East walls of the VAB. There are some 1,000 panels that have lifted off of the building. There are also areas of insulation and subpanels missing. Each panel is 4x10 feet in size. According to Kennedy, "this means that there is as much as 40,000 square feet more or less open to the elements on the VAB. The good news is that not much critical hardware was in the VAB. There are two ETs - and two aft SRB skirts in there but they are protected from the elements. The VAB was being used for storage of cars and trucks. We now need to see what we can do to protect VAB from further damage." Kennedy added "we have not inspected the VAB roof yet."

"The Shuttle Tile Facility suffered significant damage. The roof is partially gone an there is extensive water damage inside. "Tile manufacturing is on the critical path for return to flight. We are looking at possibility of Palmdale as a back up" Kennedy said."

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