08/30/2026
This morning at 07:26AM the Nancy Roman Space Telescope took flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fl. The telescope will help to provide images to help scientists unlock the mysterious forces that drive the expansion of the universe. Much like Hubble and the James Webb, it will hope to aid in the discovery of new exoplanets and other galaxies beyond ours. The project was largely built at the Goddard Space Center in Maryland. Spacex was tasked with and provided the propulsion rocket to seat it in orbit. A highly skilled and detail oriented team from Lester R. Summers Inc. in Ephrata, PA had the enormous task of moving this piece of history from Greenbelt, MD to the Cape. The Chariot, as it is called, measured a staggering 18 ft tall, 18 ft wide, 150 ft in length, and grossed out at 160,000 lbs. It took countless hours of planning to pull this move off and today, we were all excited to see our hard work, blood, sweat, and tears pay off as the telescope began it's final journey into the beyond. All of us at Summers are proud to be the ONLY carrier that NASA trusts with these moves. From our techs in the shop that prep the equipment, the operations team that logistically put everything together, and to the pilot car drivers, utility crews, wire lifters and countless support people that all work to get it moved, thank you. Most of all, thank you to #236 George Ardelean, there is none better in this business. His attention to every single detail, his steady hand on the wheel and foot on the clutch, and ability to make precision moves when there are only centimeters to spare are why we are trusted so much. We're proud to do our part for this project and to help our great country move forward on Earth and beyond all from a small town in Pennsylvania!!
