Stock Photo - A close_up, front view of the Space Shuttle Atlantis in the Mate_Demate Device MDD as technicians work to prepare the orbiter for its ferry flight from NASA´s Ames_Dryden Flight Research Facility later, the Dryden Flight Research Center to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The 100_foot_high, steel_truss, cantilevered facility is capable of precision positioning more than 220,000 pounds and is used to raise the orbiters onto jacks for ferry_flight servicing, and then hoist them higher to mate them atop the NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft SCA. The MDD, which features three separate hoist units, each capable of lifting 100,000 pounds, was designed by Connell Associates, Inc., Coral Gables, Florida, and built be the George A. Fuller Co., Chicago, Illinois, at a cost of $1.7 million.