When the Space Shuttle Discovery was successfully launched in NASA’s “Shuttle Return to Flight” mission recently, it was due in part to Kenworth C500 trucks operated by ATK Thiokol.

For more than 25 years, ATK Thiokol has built the massive, reusable solid rocket motors that have launched astronauts into space from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Each motor is composed of four segments, and is 126 feet long, 12 feet in diameter, weighs over 1.25 million pounds, including 1.1 million pounds of propellant, and generates an average thrust of 2.6 million pounds from ignition to end of the two-minute burn.
Once the propellant is used up, the solid rocket boosters housing the motors separate from the shuttle’s orbiter, land in the ocean, and are recovered and disassembled with the motors returned to ATK Thiokol. There, the cases are cleaned, inspected and reassembled for propellant casting, and a new nozzle and igniter are installed.
The Kenworth C500s enter the picture whenever the reusable solid rocket motor segments need to be transported for testing and other work around ATK Thiokol’s major facilities in Utah. They cover a 6 percent grade en route to the test area and also receive the heavy task of delivering the motor segments to a railroad spur 20 miles away for transport to the launch site.
“We have an important mission at ATK Thiokol as part of America’s space shuttle program,” said Neil Christensen, major subcontract administrator for ATK Thiokol. “To help accomplish our mission and meet NASA’s schedule, we need trucks that are reliable and get the job done, no matter how big the job.”
ATK Thiokol recently put into service a new Kenworth C500 built by Kenworth’s manufacturing plant in Renton, Wash. The company’s latest C500 includes a Caterpillar C15, 475 hp engine with a torque of 1,650 lbs.-ft. at 1,200 rpm, 230-inch wheelbase, 150,000 lb. rear axles with 18.81 ratio, 7-speed transmission, and top speed of 26 mph. That truck joined another Kenworth C500 used by ATK Thiokol since 1997.
“We worked closely with Kenworth’s application engineers to design and spec our latest C500,” said Christensen. “We especially got assistance from Kenworth on startability, the 150,000-pound rear axle setup, and ensuring that the C500 could go up that 6 percent grade at a speed as low as 2 miles per hour. Kenworth helped us put together the right truck for our extremely demanding application.”