Crawler-transporter

Crawler-transporter

The crawler-transporters are a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport spacecraft from NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) along the Crawlerway to Launch Complex 39. They were originally used to transport the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets during the Apollo, Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz programs. They were then used to transport Space Shuttles from 1981 to 2011. The crawler-transporters carry vehicles on the Mobile Launcher Platform, and after each launch return to the pad to take the platform back to the VAB.

The two crawler-transporters were designed and built by Marion Power Shovel (later Bucyrus International) using components designed and built by Rockwell International at a cost of US$14 million each. They are the largest self powered land vehicles in the world. When they were built, they were the largest land vehicles in the world, a title later taken by the German Bagger 288 excavator.