NASA project gets help from Portland engineers

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Oct 28, 2008

Portland engineering firm Nishkian Dean is currently providing engineering support to a NASA project under construction in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The project is a Lighting Protection System at Cape Canaveral pad 39B, which will work to draw lightning away from the pad's launch facility. The project is part of NASA's Constellation Program, which will replace a soon-to-be-retired space shuttle.

The lighting system consists of three freestanding steel towers, each topped with a 100-foot-tall fiberglass mast, for a total tower height of 594 feet. Nishkian Dean is providing support to general contractor Ivey Construction and has been developing lifting hardware and rigging designs, coordinating the cable hoisting and stressing sequences, and other services.

The tower construction began in September 2007 and will be completed in 2010.