KSC-2011-5583

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Mobile Launcher Platform-3 (MLP), which supported space shuttle Atlantis for its final flight to the International Space Station on the STS-135 mission, is taking its last journey from Launch Pad 39A to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Here, workers monitor the process as a massive crawler-transporter positioned under the MLP, the last mobile launcher platform to launch a shuttle, begins its trek back to the VAB. For more than 40 years, the MLPs have traveled between the massive VAB to both launch pads at Launch Complex 39, and then returned to the VAB for future use. MLP-3 was first used to launch Columbia on the STS-32 mission on Jan. 9, 1990. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett