Mobile Launcher Platform

MLP-1

Mission Profile

Mobile Launcher Platform 1 (MLP-1) is one of three identical steel platforms built for the Space Shuttle program to serve as the mobile base on which the Shuttle stack is assembled vertically in the Vehicle Assembly Building and then transported by crawler-transporter to the launch pad. Weighing 3,600 tonnes and measuring 49 × 41 × 8 meters, each MLP supports the entire Shuttle stack — External Tank, Solid Rocket Boosters, and Orbiter — through assembly, transport, and countdown, and is equipped with tail service masts that provide propellant, power, and communications until milliseconds before launch. MLP-1 supported the first Space Shuttle launch (STS-1, Columbia, 12 April 1981) and served across 135 Shuttle missions. It was subsequently modified to serve as the mobile launcher for the SLS Artemis program before a new dedicated SLS mobile launcher was constructed.