Satellite Smithing

[Popeye the Sailor]

More gantry fun:





Tilting it down:



All 12,000 lbs of bomb still being supported by.....glue.

I guess we did it right:



Faring being floated on:



In the faring:



The faring gets moved onto the train.

[Popeye the Sailor]

To the railcar!





Bring faring to the rest of the rocket:

Oh the upper rocker is connect to the lower rocket...bone





After both ends are connected they lift the entire thing up-the whole rocket with a pair of cranes and put it on another railcar:



Take it to the fueling shack,er, hall:



To the launch site:



Pointy end up!





I'm outta here!

[Popeye the Sailor]

That's about all I got that's shareable. If I find any other pictures I'll post 'em up. I do believe I have some videos.

Here are the three I built:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8PN1Y5Dyf8

This one was 45 days early. Unheard of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHDwFe1yJTk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8cUD3ClL_s

Just another day in the office. 

[ducpainter]

It took 3 pages to get to the pointy end.

[Popeye the Sailor]

Pretty good compression for two years of work. 

[Langanobob]

 Very interesting.  From your screen name I thought you probably worked for DirecTV.  You know this is the DMF and we will just skim through looking at the cool pictures and won't read the text you put so much work into.  But still, good on ya for having an interesting job and sharing.  Seems like a big difference between shop testing and the real thing when a system has to work in orbit.  Must be very rewarding when things unfold  exactly as planned.

[Duck-Stew]

Pretty good compression for two years of work. 

Wasn't there a photo of a DMF sticker placed on/in one of the rockets? 

[DucHead]

So this is why my cable bill is so big?   

Great stuff, thanks for sharing!!