If there's an emergency at the launch pad during a launch countdown, there's a special team engineers at Kennedy Space Center teams can call on - the Pad Rescue team.
Trained to quickly rescue personnel at the launch pad and take them to safety in the event of an unlikely emergency, NASA's Pad Rescue team at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been in place since the Apollo Program. Today they help support crewed missions launching from Launch Complex 39A and B, as well as Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Stationed in mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPs, the Pad Rescue team stands poised near the launch pad to assist with any emergency requiring the personnel to quickly leave the pad. If needed, they will head to the pad and break up into two separate teams - one that heads up the launch tower to aid personnel and another that is stationed at the perimeter of the pad for when crews come down the emergency escape or egress system. Once everyone is on the ground and inside the MRAPs, Pad Rescue will drive teams to one of the triage site locations at Kennedy.
They're spaceflight knights in shining armor. Except instead of saving crew from a fire breathing dragon, it's from a fully loaded skyscraper-sized rocket that's getting ready to lift off.
