A close up of NASA's 'super terrible' spacecraft transport machine

NASA Crawler Transporter is a machine manufactured by Marion Power Shovel, USA. NASA uses this machine to transport the shuttle spacecraft from the assembly area to the launch pad.

The NASA Crawler Transporter is 40m long, 35m wide and has a maximum transport capacity of 6,000 tons. It was built in early 1965. At that time, the Crawler Transporter was the largest self-propelled vehicle in the world and it maintained that position for 13 years, before losing the throne to the hands of the super-excavator Bagger 288 in 1978. However, in terms of speed, the Crawler Transporter can travel 3.2 km / h, outperforming the Bagger 288.

In terms of structure, this giant vehicle is designed with a support and 8 crawler spaced four corners. Its total weight is up to 2,400 tons.

In order for Nasa Crawler to maintain balance and facilitate the movement of the spacecraft, the engineers equipped it with a special hydraulic system, with high precision. Of course, to help Nasa Crawler move, one must design the most appropriate private path for it. Like the Bagger 288, the Nasa Crawler also operates on electric motors.

Nasa Crawler used to transport Saturn IB and Saturn V boosters in NASA's illustrious NASA moon Apolo project.

Take a look at Nasa Crawler - a huge transport system that uses a crawler to bring the spacecraft to NASA's launch position, in the video below.