State of NASA features future KSC home of Mars rocket during virtual tour

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – Facebook users got a look at the future home of NASA’s Mars launch vehicle and the Orion spacecraft Tuesday at Kennedy Space Center during a virtual tour.

The video was part of the State of NASA update in which acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot discussed the Fiscal Year 2018 budget proposal released Tuesday.

Unfortunately audio and signal issues plagued most of the livestream that showed KSC launch pads and views from inside the VAB. The recorded video was later posted to Facebook with the audio fixed. Watch it below.

Ground Systems Development Office associate program manager Shawn Quinn was in the video more than 300-feet up in the Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, where the Space Launch System rocket will be assembled before launching from Cape Canaveral starting in 2019.

NASA Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana spoke in the live video from KSC, pointing out launchpads including 39A, which recently started being used by SpaceX in March.

Both Quinn and Cabana answered a few questions from social media users.

The 40-story VAB was originally built for the Apollo program to house heavy launch vehicles. It was later modified for the Space Shuttle Program and is now under construction again for SLS.

“We have just completed the installation of 10 VAB platforms,” Quinn said. “For the SLS and Orion program we are only supporting one high bay, so we have three additional high bays that could be used by commercial providers or other government users.”

SLS is NASA's powerful launch system being assembled to eventually carry humans to Mars and on other deep space missions.

Several production delays have set back the first test launch, Exploration Mission-1 to 2019.

SLS will launch the Orion spacecraft, being assembled at Kennedy, to orbit the moon in EM-1.

President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget includes $19.1 billion in funding for NASA.

The tour of at Kennedy was the sixth stop on the NASA "virtual tour."

“The president’s budget confirms and shows his confidence in NASA and the track that we’re in and all that we’re doing,” Cabana said. “No where is that more evident than at the Kennedy Space Center.”

Facebook live videos also featured NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center, Glenn Research Center, John C. Stennis Space Center, Armstrong Flight Research Center and Langley Research Center.

“What this budget tells us to do is keeping going,” Lightfoot said in his address aired on NASA TV.

The budget provides the funding to send humans to Mars orbit in the 2030s, Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot spoke about the "awesome stuff" happening at NASA facilities around the country ever day, mentioning the Cassini spacecraft making its final dives through the rings of Saturn and the RS-25 engine test that happened Tuesday at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The FY 2018 budget does not include funding for NASA’s Office of Education and the Asteroid Redirect Mission.

Lightfoot said NASA plans to use the solar electric propulsion technology, part of the Asteroid Redirect Mission, for future moon and human missions.

The budget supports funding for 100 future and operating space missions, including the Solar Probe Plus, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, the InSight Mars lander and the James Webb Space Telescope, which are on track to launch in 2018.

A new Mars rover is still on track for a 2020 launch, Lightfoot said.