Shuttle transport system. Time-lapse footage of the external tank (orange) and booster rockets (white) of a Space Shuttle being moved out of and back into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. The rockets are mounted on a Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP) and being transported on a crawler-transporter. The footage includes a water truck spraying the ground in front of the MLP and crawler-transporter as they moves over the Crawlerway, a 40-metre-wide track designed for transporting heavy loads such as this. The VAB, one of the largest buildings in the world and 160 metres high, is where NASA's largest launch systems are assembled and then moved to the launch pads. The Space Shuttle program operated from 1981 to 2011. |