Sandia National Laboratories has completed the second and final full-scale crash test of a next-generation transporter designed to carry U.S. nuclear weapons and other sensitive materials.
The Mobile Guardian Transporter (MGT), being developed for the Department of Energy’s Office of Secure Transportation, was propelled by rocket motors down Sandia’s sled track before being slammed into a barrier in a head-on crash. The test was designed to assess whether the trailer, its restraints and the weapons shipping containers could withstand a severe accident while keeping their cargo secure, according to the lab’s Aug. 17 press release.
Sandia conducted the first MGT crash test in 2020, evaluating the system in a side-impact scenario. The second test, conducted in 2025, completes the full-scale crash-test series and provides additional data needed to qualify the transporter’s design.
The test generated what Sandia described as the largest data-collection effort in the history of its rocket sled track facility. Engineers outfitted the trailer with nearly 500 data channels measuring acceleration, strain, force and temperature, along with roughly three dozen cameras.
Sandia said the test met its objectives, including the targeted crash speed. Engineers will now analyze the results and compare them with modeling and simulation predictions to develop a tool for evaluating the transporter across a range of crash environments.
About 200 Sandia employees participated in the effort, alongside staff from the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the Office of Secure Transportation, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories and other partners.
The Kansas City National Security Campus’ New Mexico Operations will produce the MGT fleet, while crash-test data will help inform final design decisions ahead of future production, the release said.