KSC-2010-3071

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne aerospace technician Ken Burley inspects the inner workings of space shuttle main engine, or SSME, #2062 in the Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility. This is the last SSME scheduled to be built at Kennedy before the end of the Space Shuttle Program. Three main engines are clustered at the aft end of the shuttle and have a combined thrust of more than 1.2 million pounds. Each engine utilizes liquid hydrogen for fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidizer and operates during the entire eight-and-a-half minute ride to orbit. Post-flight inspections and maintenance of each engine also are conducted in the SSME Processing Facility between shuttle missions. Photo credit: NASA_Jack Pfaller