Rocket-carrying ship smashes up lake bridge in collision

On 26 January, an ocean-going cargo ship called Delta Mariner which is used to carry Delta IV and Atlas V rocket stages from a factory in Alabama to the launch sites at Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg, California, crashed into the Eggner’s Ferry Bridge on the Kentucky Lake and Tennessee River causing substantial damage including a partial bridge collapse.

The vessel was carrying an Atlas V rocket first stage and Centaur upper stage for the launch in April of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-2). The ship was also carrying an interstage adapter for the NASA Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission’s Atlas V launch in August.

Source: FlightGlobal.com