NASA’s Super Guppy Gives Mars-Bound Spacecraft A Lift



Today the Orion capsule, NASA’s spacecraft designed to bring humans to Mars, starts its next phase of development at Kennedy Space Center. The remarkable part is that just this morning, that large spacecraft was at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

In order to carry Orion from New Orleans to Cape Canaveral, NASA recruited their Super Guppy aircraft. The Super Guppy has a cargo area that is 25 feet tall, 25 feet wide and 111 feet long. The jumbo plane can carry over 26 tons worth of cargo and is often used by NASA to ferry large components around the country that would take too long (or be impossible) to ship by land or by sea.

The Super Guppy’s history dates back to the Apollo program. It was used in the 1960’s to carry parts of the Saturn V rocket from California to Florida. The other option NASA had was to ship rocket stages through the Panama Canal, which would often take weeks or months longer.

Super Guppy with 2 supersonic jets / Image courtesy of NASA


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