CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A train hauling highly explosive shuttle solid-fuel rocket booster segments derailed at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) this week, prompting an investigation into what is believed to be the first railroad wreck at the storied gateway to the universe.
The derailment occurred Tuesday, July 18 while the train was traveling at a near-glacial 3 m.p.h. (4.8 kilometers per hour), which is about walking speed, agency officials said. None of the booster segments were damaged, and the incident doesnt appear to be a threat to NASAs fully loaded shuttle flight schedule.
Shuttle solid-fuel rocket booster segments are shipped between Utah and Florida on rail.
Still, the derailment is the first at least in recent memory for the railroad operation at Kennedy, which has been transporting rocket stages around the center since the Apollo moon landing missions back in the 1960s.
"This is the first time since Ive been here that weve had a derailment at KSC," said center spokesman George Diller, a longtime agency veteran and an aficionado of both space launch and railroad operations.
"If you look at this from a railroad perspective, this is really a minor thing. The only thing that makes it significant at all is that the cars were carrying [shuttle booster] segments."
Heres what happened:
About midday Tuesday, NASA set out to move six hump-shaped railroad cars each containing a fully-fueled shuttle booster segment from a railroad track parking
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place to a KSC processing facility. A locomotive was pulling the string with a water-filled spacer car in between.
Creeping along ever so slowly, the lengthy train ran over a switch in the railroad track. Then two of the cars that were toting booster segments for some reason jumped the track.
The back wheels of one of those cars and the front wheels of the other inexplicably derailed.
"They were just kind of chugging along when the wheels went off the track," Diller said.
The booster segments held firmly in place within their carrier railroad cars. In fact, sensors called accelerometers show they were barely nudged.
But about 30 feet (33 meters) of the space center railroad line sustained "moderate damage," Diller said. And the upset string of railroad cars still was sitting on the track late Wednesday while NASA officials pondered a future course of action.
Still unclear is exactly which upcoming shuttle mission the booster segments are intended for. And it probably will take a couple of days to repair the damaged track and get the segments back on their way to their KSC processing facility.
In the meantime, Diller said, an investigation team comprising NASA and agency contractor officials will attempt to figure out exactly what happened and why.
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