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The Mobile Service Structure (MSS) was used for every launch preparation of the Saturn V. It was removed some hours before launch. The MSS is the white tower on the left side.

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The MSS was moved and removed using the same crawler as the Saturn and the red launch tower. Did they mount and dismount the MSS to the launch pad each time using nuts and bolts?

This is a followup question to this posting.

Uwe
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    Moonport says the MSS was required to withstand 100 kph winds at the launch site, but does not give details of the mountings that I could find. – Organic Marble May 02 '20 at 17:39
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    Moonport also says "in the event of a hurricane, the tower would be removed from the pad area". I found this paper on the mountings of the LUT. Maybe the MSS used the same type? – Ludo May 02 '20 at 18:10
  • I saw a mention of hold-down arms, but no details. – Organic Marble May 02 '20 at 18:27

1 Answers1

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The A11 press kit has some information about the MSS:

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So the MSS is secured to four mount mechanisms. But no details about it.

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Wind loads were a second major concern for the tower's designers. On 28 March representatives of the Marion Power Shovel Company, the Corps of Engineers, LOC, and Rust agreed to design for a maximum wind velocity of 100 kilometers per hour. When resting on its supports at the launch pad, however, the arming tower was to be able to sustain considerably higher winds. NASA officials cancelled the latter requirement two weeks later: in the event of a hurricane, the tower would be removed from the pad area.

Source page

Uwe
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    There's a lot of info in the 9th Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium about the mount points for the Mobile Launcher. Some of it may be relevant to the MSS but I have not checked in detail. Document page 373 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19760012084.pdf – Organic Marble May 03 '20 at 20:19
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    @OrganicMarble That's the same paper I linked in the comment on the question. But that symposium has some interesting other papers, like the parasol used on Skylab. And a paper about an automated parking garage...? – Ludo May 04 '20 at 13:48
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    @Ludo I was looking at them yesterday. There are at least 44 volumes of those proceedings available on ntrs, and they contain some fascinating topics! I feel like Scotty now, spending my "vacation" reading technical journals. – Organic Marble May 04 '20 at 13:53