Jones Edmunds & Associates, Inc., a Gainesville based engineering and environmental sciences consulting firm, recently was recognized by NASA for its contributions to the Kennedy Uplink System project. The firm received the NASA Space Flight Awareness Team Award at an award ceremony held on November 4 at the Kennedy Space Center.
Jones Edmunds provided design and construction administration services for the development of support infrastructure and foundations to relocate a 6.1 meter S-Band dish antenna and radome from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to the Kennedy Space Center to support NASA’s new Space Launch System. NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, is an advanced launch vehicle for a new era of exploration beyond Earth’s orbit into deep space. SLS, the world’s most powerful rocket, will launch astronauts in the agency’s Orion spacecraft on missions to an asteroid and eventually to Mars, while opening new possibilities for other payloads including robotic scientific missions to places like Mars, Saturn and Jupiter.
The firm’s work on the Kennedy Uplink System project included demolition of a former antenna foundation and pedestal and design of a new concrete foundation and pedestal for the relocated antennae and a concrete ringwall for the relocated radome in the former antenna location. The project included site civil design within a minimal footprint to avoid impacts to adjacent wetlands. The project also included a terrain and vegetation assessment necessary to establish foundation elevations to ensure the antenna has appropriate line-of-site to the Vehicle Assembly Building, a planned launch vehicle at Launch Complex 39B, and other launch pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
“We are proud to have been a part of this project and are honored to be recognized for our teamwork and contribution to NASA’s mission,” said Rick Ferreira, PE, Jones Edmunds President and CEO. “Having worked with NASA over the past two decades, we are grateful to continue providing our expertise in support of their innovative work in the spaceflight program, as we did with this project.”
Over the past 20 years, Jones Edmunds has completed more than 250 projects for NASA, including award-winning designs such as the LEED Platinum Certified Propellants North Administrative and Maintenance Facility and the KSC Crawlerway Evaluation.
Photo from left to right: Chad Collett, Kim Rivera and Maurice Armstrong
