Thursday marked the highly-anticipated reveal of NASA's giant new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), which rolled out of the space agency's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for the first time on its way to the launch pad.
Put simply, SLS is heavy. In its most basic configuration it weighs 5.75 million pounds, or around 2,600 metric tons. It therefore needs a powerful vehicle to transport it—the Crawler-Transporter 2 (CT-2).
As the name suggests, NASA's crawler-transporters were built to move very large, heavy objects from one place to another, and not particularly quickly.
The crawlers are historic, having operated for more than 50 years. First built in 1965 to move the enormous Saturn V rocket from the VAB to the launch pad, the crawlers went on to transport the Space Shuttles for 30 years. In all that time, CT-2 in particular has traveled 2,365 miles—all of them at walking pace.
The vehicles are huge, roughly the size of a baseball infield. Tom Whitmeyer, the associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA headquarters in Washington D.C., called CT-2 "the most phenomenal thing I've ever seen" in a news conference on March 14, according to Space.com.
CT-2 is 131 feet long and 114 feet wide, weighing around 6.6 million pounds before it is even loaded with anything. It is capable of transporting as much as 18 million pounds, which is equivalent to more than 20 fully-loaded Boeing 777 airplanes.
In order to shift all this weight, the crawlers are each equipped with 16 locomotive traction motors, each with 375 horsepower, plus two 16-cylinder 2,750 hp diesel engines and four 1,000 kW electrical generators. They use approximately 165 gallons of fuel per mile.
Despite all this power, the crawlers can reach a top speed of one mile per hour when loaded and two miles per hour when unloaded—though NASA says it has never tested CT-2 to such a brisk pace. As the crawlers move, analysis determines the optimal speed for the smoothest ride.
Upon delivery of SLS to the launch pad, the rocket will be lowered onto the pad's mount mechanisms. CT-2 will then roll back down the pad slope and park nearby in case SLS needs to return back to the VAB. If SLS remains on the pad, CT-2 will travel to another location called the Mobile Service Structure park site where it will be protected during the launch of SLS.
SLS is the backbone of NASA's plans for the next generation of human spaceflight. Within a few years the space agency aims to return humans to the moon via the Artemis program and eventually to Mars.
Before that, NASA will enable private U.S. companies to deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the moon's surface. Another key step will be the construction of the Gateway, a space station orbiting the moon that will provide support for lunar missions as well as a starting point for further exploration to other planets.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
