The Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) is a facility at

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

constructed by

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in either 1994 or 1995 and used for spacecraft and payload processing. Prior to being assigned the role of processing the Orion spacecraft, the MPPF was used to process solely non-hazardous payloads.

Layout

Multi-Payload Processing Facility Floor Plan

The interior of the primary MPPF building is divided into a low bay, high bay, and equipment airlock. The high bay is certified for the processing of hazardous materials such as high-pressure gasses,

hypergolic propellant A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. The ...

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pu ...

oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

, and

fluorocarbon Fluorocarbons are chemical compounds with carbon-fluorine bonds. Compounds that contain many C-F bonds often have distinctive properties, e.g., enhanced stability, volatility, and hydrophobicity. Several fluorocarbons and their derivatives are ...

s. It has a usable floor space of with a ceiling height of . It is equipped with an bridge crane with a hook height of and a vertical door. The low bay has a usable floor space of with a ceiling height of . Both the high bay and low bay are class 100,000

cleanroom A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space that maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well-isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientifi ...

s. The airlock has a usable floor space of with a ceiling height of and is a class 300,000 cleanroom. It is equipped with a door.

Usage

After its construction, the MPPF was used for the processing of both

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and

Launch Services Program The NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) is responsible for procurement of launch services for NASA uncrewed missions and oversight of launch integration and launch preparation activity, providing added quality and mission assurance to meet program ...

payloads. Following the end of the Shuttle program in 2011, it is slated to process the Orion spacecraft, and is also available to process hazardous or non-hazardous

Space Launch System The Space Launch System (SLS) is an American Super heavy-lift launch vehicle, super heavy-lift Expendable launch system, expendable launch vehicle used by NASA. As the primary launch vehicle of the Artemis program, Artemis Moon landing progra ...

(SLS) payloads if necessary. Design work on upgrading the MPPF for Orion processing began in 2007 during the

Constellation program The Constellation program (abbreviated CxP) was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" and a " ...

, but actual installation and modification work began in 2013. Orion spacecraft processing will be performed by the Spacecraft and Offline Operations team while the SLS is being stacked on the Mobile Launcher in the

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. During this time flight commodities will be loaded into the spacecraft. These flight commodities include

monomethyl hydrazine Monomethylhydrazine (MMH) is a highly toxic, volatile hydrazine derivative with the chemical formula . It is used as a rocket propellant in bipropellant rocket engines because it is hypergolic with various oxidizers such as nitrogen tetroxide () a ...

fuel and

nitrogen tetroxide Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russian rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

oxidizer used in Orion's propulsion systems,

coolant for thermal control, and

Freon Freon ( ) is a registered trademark of the Chemours Company and generic descriptor for a number of halocarbon products. They are stable, nonflammable, low toxicity gases or liquids which have generally been used as refrigerants and as aerosol p ...

for the service module's radiator system. The MPPF will also be used to de-service Orion capsules that have returned from space and remove any residual flight commodities. Due to the hazardous materials involved, loading and unloading of flight commodities will be remotely monitored and controlled from one of the firing rooms inside the

Launch Control Center The Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center (commonly known as just the Launch Control Center or LCC) is a four-story building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, used to manage rocket launch, launches of launch vehicles from ...

and performed by technicians wearing Self Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble (SCAPE)

hazmat Hazmat, HazMat or HAZMAT may refer to: * Dangerous goods, hazardous materials and items * Hazmat suit * Hazmat diving * Hazmat (comics) is a Marvel Comics character * ''HazMat'' (film), a 2013 horror film See also * Hazmat Modine Hazmat Mo ...

suits. On January 16 2021, The

Artemis 1 Artemis I, formerly Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), was an uncrewed Moon-orbiting mission that was launched in November 2022. As the first major spaceflight of NASA's Artemis program, Artemis I marked the agency's return to lunar exploration a ...

Orion spacecraft began fueling and pre-launch servicing in the MPPF following a handover to exploration ground systems.

Gallery

File:STS-80 ORFEUS-SPAS II 01.jpg, The ORFEUS-SPAS-2 satellite is prepared in the MPPF for

STS-80 STS-80 was a Space Shuttle mission flown by Space Shuttle Columbia, Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. The launch was originally scheduled for October 31, 1996, but was delayed to November 19 for several reasons. Likewise, the landing, which was origin ...

, which launched in November 1996 File:STS-80 Payload 01.jpg, The

Wake Shield Facility Wake or The Wake may refer to: Culture *Wake (ceremony), a ritual which takes place during some funeral ceremonies *Wakes week, an English holiday tradition * Parish Wake, another name of the Welsh ', the fairs held on the local parish's patron s ...

-3 (WSF-3) is lowered into the payload canister for STS-80 in the MPPF File:KSC-107-FREESTAR.jpg, A payload for

STS-107 STS-107 was the 113th flight of the Space Shuttle program, and the 28th(twenty eigth) and final flight of Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. The mission ended on the 1st of February 2003, with the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster which killed al ...

awaiting transfer to the payload canister File:Galex PIA04264.jpg, The

Galaxy Evolution Explorer Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX or Explorer 83 or SMEX-7) was a NASA orbiting space telescope designed to observe the universe in ultraviolet wavelengths to measure the history of star formation in the universe. In addition to paving the way ...

(GALEX) in the MPPF prior to its launch in 2003 File:KSC-20160815-PH JBS01 0004B (28915575090).jpg, The Orion service platform in 2016, shortly after its completion File:KSC-20160815-PH JBS01 0044 (29169450736).jpg, View of the Orion service platform from the top level File:KSC-20160815-PH JBS01 0070 (29203570885).jpg, Engineers and technicians testing systems and equipment for fueling the Orion spacecraft in August 2016

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

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External links

Inside the Multi-Payload Processing Facility

Facilities Used for SLS and Orion
{{Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center