On Tuesday, May 15, 2007, Atlantis begins its slow journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

All Shuttles, as were all Saturn V and Saturn IB rockets (used for Apollo and Skylab missions), are set on top of a mobile launcher platform (MLP) and taken to the launch site by the Crawler-Transporter (CT).

Actually, two Crawler-Transporters are used, nicknamed Hans (crawler-transporter #1) and Franz (#2). The names were coined after the skit of Hans and Franz on the live comedy show Saturday Night Live. The characters were part of the skit called “Pumping Up with Hans & Franz”, where Dana Carvey (“Hans”) and Kevin Nealon (“Franz”) played  a pair of muscular Austrian bodybuilders (kinda like Arnold Schwarzenegger).

The Crawler-Transporter is a tracked vehicle that takes the Shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the Launch pad on a Mobile Launcher Platform. Bucyrus International designed the CT and Marion Power Shovel Company built them. As the largest self-powered tracked vehicle in the world, each one costs about $14 million. They have been in use since 1965.

The CT has eight tracks: two on each of its four corners. Each track has 57 shoes. Each shoe weights about 900 kilograms (about 2,000 pounds, or one ton).

Overall length and width of the CT is 131 feet by 114 feet (40 meters by 35 meters). Its adjustable height is from 20 to 26 feet (6 to 8 meters). It weighs approximately 2.7 million kilograms (six million pounds, or 3,000 tons)

Two 2,750-horsepower (2.050 megawatt) diesel engines drive the CT. About 150 U.S. gallons of diesel oil are used per mile on its 3.5 to 4.0-mile journey (depending on launch pad) between the VAB and the launch pad.

It drives at a top speed of about one mile per hour while loaded with a Shuttle, and doubles it speed back to the hanger when empty. The journey from the VAB to launch pad usually takes from five to eight hours.

The two CTs will continue to be used when Ares I rockets and the Orion spacecraft (Project Constellation) replace the Space Shuttle Fleet (Space Transportation System).

Ares V, which is a rocket to carry cargo, not humans, is heavier. When Ares V starts operations, the two CTs will be retired and replaced with heavier-duty crawler-transporters.

The launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-117) is planned for no earlier than June 8. For more information on the Atlantis rollout, go to the ITwire article: “It’s a GO: Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-117) to rollout May 15, 2007” (http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/12095/1066/)

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