Train carrying space-shuttle booster components from Utah's ATK derails in Alabama

MYRTLEWOOD, Ala. — A freight train carrying segments of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters derailed Wednesday after a bridge collapsed, authorities said. Six people aboard the train were reported injured.

NASA said it was not immediately known whether the equipment was damaged. But space agency spokesman Allard Beutel in Washington said the accident should not delay any shuttle launches.

The cause of the bridge collapse was under investigation.

The shuttle's twin boosters are 150 feet tall and consist of four propellant segments each. They are used during liftoff and the first two minutes or so of flight to help the spacecraft break free of Earth's orbit, and are then jettisoned into the sea, after which they are recovered, refurbished and reused.

It was a leak of burning gas between two segments of a solid booster rocket that caused the Challenger explosion that killed seven astronauts in 1986.

NASA sent teams to check on the whether the equipment was damaged in the derailment. But the Alabama Emergency Management Agency said the train landed on its side on the ground in the woods next to the tracks, none of the cargo spilled, and there appeared to be no fire.

NASA spokesman Kyle Herring said the segments were not scheduled for use during the next shuttle flight, the liftoff of Atlantis on June 8, but for missions in October and December. NASA's solid rocket boosters and their parts are freely interchangeable.

It was the second time in less than a week that the train jumped the tracks while carrying the booster segments across the country from the manufacturer, ATK Launch Systems Group of Promontory, Utah, to Cape Canaveral, Fla., Herring said.

Last Friday, two axles on one car came off the tracks for unknown reasons about 60 miles west of Salina, Kan., while the train was traveling at less than 20 mph, Herring said. The train was back on the tracks after several hours, the spokesman said.

A spokesman for the manufacturer, Bryce Hallowell, said the rocket company had two employees and a contractor on the train Wednesday, and they suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The condition of the other three was not immediately released.

"It's our understanding the motors are stable," Hallowell said. After an inspection, he said, the company will work with the railroad to safely remove them.