Ground support equipment technicians assist as a crane moves a new jacking, equalizing and leveling, or JEL, hydraulic cylinder close for installation on crawler-transporter 1 at the crawler transporter maintenance facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. New JEL hydraulic cylinders will be installed on CT-1 to test them for increased load carrying capacity and reliability.
The Ground Systems Development and Operations Program at Kennedy continues to upgrade CT-1 as part of its general maintenance. CT-1 could be available to carry a variety of launch vehicles to the launch pad. Two crawler-transporters were used to carry the mobile launcher platform and space shuttle to Launch Complex 39 for space shuttle launches for 30 years. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann