Intro music playing.
It was a wet morning at Kennedy Space Center May 7 when a torrent of water was unleashed at Launch Pad 39A.
It wasn't rain, but rather, it was a test of the pad's Sound Suppression System.
The system was tested because NASA recently replaced the six main system valves as part of the Return to Flight effort.
The Sound Suppression System uses water to absorb potentially damaging shock waves generated during a Shuttle launch.
A water tank near the pad supplies water to a series of 16 enormous nozzles, called "rainbirds."
The tank emptied in just over 40 seconds as water sprayed across the Mobile Launcher Platform as fast as 900,000 gallons per minute!
It was only the fourth test of the system in Shuttle Program history.