If you were a solid rocket booster and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a shuttle fuel tank, this would be your view from on high.

Here, you are the left solid rocket booster (SRB) for NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis, which the nose and portside of which are visible as you look down towards the Earth some 149 feet (45 meters) below. Your black and white rocket twin, the right SRB, is obscured by Atlantis’ massive external tank, which appears as the orange cylinder extending down from upper left.

NASA’s SRBs are filled with solid rocket propellant and assembled in reusable segments. The boosters jettison from the external tank about two minutes after liftoff, then parachute down to the Atlantic Ocean where they can be recovered by waiting ships.

In this image, the joined, SRB-external tank-Atlantis spacecraft – known at NASA as the launch stack – rolls out of the space agency’s cavernous 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building on Feb. 15, 2007 to Pad 39A [image].

The spacecraft is due to launch NASA’s six-astronaut STS-117 crew towards the International Space Station (ISS) in the predawn hours of March 15 to deliver new solar wings to the orbital laboratory.

• Next Shuttle Astronauts to Fly Take Aim at ISS
• Shuttle Atlantis Reaches Launch Pad for March Space Shot
• STS-117 Power Play: Atlantis Shuttle Crew to Deliver ISS Solar Wings
• The Great Space Quiz: Space Shuttle Countdown
• Complete Shuttle Mission Coverage
• All About the Space Shuttle

-- Tariq Malik

Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett.