The Operations and Checkout Building is a five-story structure containing 600,000 square feet of offices, laboratories, astronaut crew quarters and spacecraft assembly areas. The rear of the building contains a class 100,000 clean room that runs the entire length and height of the building. Two 27.5 ton Cranes are used to move payloads in this facility. The Low Bay area of the O&C measures 475' long, 86' wide and 70' with a net area of 41,275 sq ft. The O&C Building is located in the industrial area immediately east of the KSC headquarters building.
In the 1960's, some of the Gemini capsules and all the Apollo Lunar Modules and Command Modules were integrated and tested in this facility. In the 1970's, the facility was used to integrate and test the Apollo Soyuz Test Project Mission and the Skylab Mission. In 1977, NASA contracted with W&J Construction Corp of Florida to convert the O&C High Bay into facility to support the processing of horizontal payloads in support of the Spacelab Program.
In the 1980's and 1990's, the facility was used to integrate and test all of Spacelab missions. In total, 28 Space Shuttle missions carried Spacelab hardware before the program was decommissioned in 1998. From 1998 until 2005, the facility was used to build the S0, P1 and S1 trusses on the International Space Station. In 2008, the O&C highbay and some of the adjacent lab areas were totally renovated and turned over to Lockheed. It is now being used as the manufacturing and test area for the Orion Spacecraft.
Survey of Florida NASA owned Historic Facilities - 2007
(FMSF-8BR1693)
Old O&C Facility Handbook
Detailed map of the O&C Building area (internal only).
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