Jordan Vinson, a Bechtel communications supervisor covering the company’s work to deliver Tower Module 6 of NASA’s Mobile Launcher 2, says he had to wait a while to capture this image.
Calling it “one of my favorite photos,” he says his safety gear and fall prevention training allowed him to climb to the top of the 240-foot-tall tower and focus his shot on the irregularly shaped cavity at the base, called “the flame hole,” which he says is “built to withstand the violence of the commercial end of NASA’s Artemis rockets.”
Above the flame hole is an interior portion of the base and a section of the piping network of the base’s integrated mass ignition overpressure sound suppression system, which will force what Vinson describes as “a massive deluge of water into the base of the launcher during liftoff.”
Bechtel press secretary Ashley Accardo notes in the photo submission for ENR’s annual photo contest that the water deluge will reduce the noise load NASA’s Artemis rockets will exert on the launch pad, and that without this system, the launcher “would be destroyed by the rocket during liftoff.”
