Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at Johnson Space Center

The Space Vehicle Mockup Facility (SVMF) onboard the Johnson Space Center is exactly what you would expect based on the name of the building.

Inside of this massive building there are life size versions of key modules on the International Space Station such as the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), the US Destiny Laboratory, and the European Columbus module.  They are connected and laid out exactly as they are on the orbiting station and are used to help train astronauts before they head into space for their own mission to ISS. Note: We were allowed to go inside the JEM and Destiny modules and there are shots of them in this gallery.

If that sounds familiar then it should because these high fidelity mockups can be compared to the gear that is in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab pool that also help astronauts gain familiarity with and learn how to work on the exterior of the station.

However, the ISS modules are not the only items in the SVMF because you will also find a mockup of the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, the Orion capsule that will take astronauts to the moon and beyond, a Soyuz capsule which also happens to be only way personnel are getting up and down from station, and a flight deck mockup of the Space Shuttle even remains among all of the hardware.

A little further down the floor there were also mockups for rovers, docking adapters, hatches, and even the future of NASA robotics that will help build habitats on Mars someday.

Although there is no micro-gravity in these mockups, the ability for astronauts to spend time on the ground learning where everything is and how it works eliminates a long period of familiarization once they are onboard teh station.