One of NASA’s Apollo-era rocket transporters holds the Guinness World Record for the heaviest self-propelled vehicle .
Guinness World Records on March 29 awarded NASA a certificate of Crawler-Transporter 2 vehicle with a weight of 3,106 tons, equivalent to 1,000 pickup trucks. However, this record was set a decade ago.
NASA employees celebrate the record of Crawler-Transporter 2. (Photo: NASA).
According to the Guinness Foundation, the weight of the vehicle increased as a result of an upgrade completed on March 23, 2016, which included the replacement of two huge locomotive engines that power four crawler nests and numerous reinforcements. other system. These upgrades contribute to the current weight of the vehicle.
In fact, two NASA tracked vehicles previously shared the record after being built by Marion Power Shovel company in 1966. Initially, the duo was born to carry Apollo Saturn V rockets and Apollo Saturn V rockets. from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to launch pad 39A or 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At that time, each carriage weighed about 2,700 tons.
Although 320 tons lighter than the current Crawler-Transporter 2, both vehicles are in their own group. Later land-based vehicles were larger and heavier, but required external power to function. Meanwhile, NASA’s crawler vehicle produces all the power itself.
In 1973, two crawler carriages switched to transporting smaller and lighter space shuttles. Today, the Crawler-Transporter 2 is selected to carry the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and mobile launcher in NASA’s Artemis program. Most recently, Crawler-Transporter 2 delivered the launch vehicle complex during the Artemis 1 mission in November 2022. Next, the vehicle will support Artemis 2, NASA’s first mission to the Moon in more than 50 years.
The crawler carriage has dimensions of 40 x 35m, the height can be adjusted to reach a maximum of 8m. Due to the heavy load, the vehicle takes between 8 and 12 hours to travel 6.8 km from the VAB to the launch pad at 1.6 km/h. “Anyone interested in machines will appreciate the technical achievement of the crawler vehicle,” said Shawn Quinn, NASA’s ground systems program manager.