Eastern Railroad Discussion > Rocket Delivery to Cape Canaveral

To All:

Recently, I witnessed the launch of the rocket to the ISS. It had me thinking of how are the rockets being delivered to Cape Canaveral? Just wondered. I thought NASA Railroad was closed.

Barge?

This is an internet file picture of the rocket barge after it took out a bridge on the Tennessee river. They did barge them from Huntsville, AL. Probably still do but there is a new bridge.

---

At the Port Canaveral there is a dock just for the Air Force to use. Plus NASA has there own dock up the river

Posted from Android

SpaceX trucks their Falcon 9 boosters in from their test facility in Macgregor, TX. United Launch Alliance uses the Delta Mariner mentioned above to deliver Atlas V and Delta IV boosters from their Decatur, AL facility. NASA will use the Pegasus barge to ship the SLS stages from the Michoud LA plant to the turning basin at the Kennedy Space Center The Delta Mariner docks at a navy facility near the main gate to CCAFS, and adjacent to the SpaceX launch control center.

The photo below is from the Thaicom 8 launch last May, I was 2-1/2 miles from the pad.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/17 17:36 by ATSF90East.

---

> This is an internet file picture of the rocket
> barge after it took out a bridge on the Tennessee
> river. They did barge them from Huntsville, AL.

NTSB report at https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/MAR1302.pdf. The bridge was repaired within a few months, but last year it was replaced. The origin of the shipments is Decatur, Ala downriver from Huntsville. The ULA plant in Decatur is served by NS. Boosters are trucked a short distance from the plant to the river.

After reading the summary and the recommendations I think the NTSB should have ordered the implementation of "PBC" on the nations waterways, but then that would cost the government money. :-)

Thank you to everyone who responded. I live near McGregor and I understand why the boosters are trucked. It seems the railroad would be the most economical way to transport but apparently SpaceX is not aware of the advantages of rail transportation. It seems this is an opportunity for BNSF.

I think it was GreenFrog that did a video on the NASA railroad. Rockets and rails I think it was called.

Most larger active rockets today run on liquid fuel, meaning they can be shipped empty and are lightweight enough to take the highways. I would expect that is less expensive than railroads for the very low volume commodity they are. As others mentioned, some pieces also get barged.

NASA's SLS rocket will have solid fueled booster segments based on the old shuttle motors. I'd guess once those get built they'll take the rails from Utah to Florida as the shuttle ones did. First launch of one of those was scheduled for sometime in 2019 last time I checked.

SLS will probably have a much lower launch cadence than the shuttle did, so that program will not need nearly as many boosters as the space shuttle did. A junkyard in Utah (Smith and Edwards, along I-15 somewhere north of Ogden) had some of the booster shipping containers that used to ride on flatcars sitting out in their yard last time I drove by, I presume they were for sale if anyone wants one.