In the vast waters of the Gulf of Mexico, fishing boats skimming the waves and cargo ships charting global courses are joined by a unique vessel — part ocean freighter, part spacefaring accomplice.
Her name is ”RocketShip,” and while she may not carry cannons or torpedoes, she’s the pride of an unusual Alabama-based maritime fleet belonging to the United Launch Alliance.
ULA, known across the aerospace world for hurling satellites and scientific missions into Earth’s orbit aboard its stalwart Atlas and Delta rockets — and now its next-gen Vulcan Centaur — doesn’t just build these colossal machines in secret inland labs. It also moves them across thousands of miles by sea, with a fleet that might seem completely at home in a Tom Clancy novel.
At the heart of the operation is the RocketShip, a 312-foot roll-on/roll-off cargo vessel that once answered to the name “Delta Mariner.”
Her mission? To deliver powerful rockets — carefully cradled in custom-built transport containers — from ULA’s sprawling 2.4-million-square-foot factory in Decatur, Alabama, to launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
And she will soon have a sister ship.
ULA is expanding its naval fleet to support the growing demand for its Alabama-built Vulcan rockets by constructing a second vessel, christened the R/S SpaceShip.
The keel for the 356-foot R/S SpaceShip was laid in October 2024, at Bollinger Marine Fabricators in Amelia, Louisiana. Construction is under way, with delivery to ULA expected in early next year
This expansion reflects ULA’s increasing launch rate, chiefly to meet the needs of customers like Amazon, which has contracted ULA to deploy its Kuiper satellite constellation.
Epic voyages
RocketShip’s journeys begin in landlocked Decatur, where the Tennessee River serves as the first watery stretch of her epic voyages.
From there, RocketShip sails down to the Gulf and around Florida’s southern tip, or onward through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast — a slow, deliberate odyssey.
On board, rockets like Vulcan Centaur or the last Delta IV Heavy may rest beneath hatches, but their presence buzzes through the steel of the deck.
“United Launch Alliance’s use of an ocean-going fleet to transport rockets from Decatur to launch sites across the country is a remarkable example of the innovation and precision that defines Alabama’s aerospace industry,” said Bob Smith, the Alabama Department of Commerce’s point man on aerospace.
“From the heart of our state to the edge of space, ULA’s operations demonstrate how Alabama-built technology — and Alabama ingenuity — power some of the most critical missions in the nation’s space program,” added Smith, who is part of Commerce business development team at the 2025 Paris Air Show.
On the Rocketship, the crew treats each voyage like a military operation. The vessel’s top speed isn’t much of an issue, but when you’re hauling gravity-defying capability in tube-shaped form, pace gives way to precision.
But it’s not all just seafaring science. There’s something poetic in RocketShip’s regular rhythm — from Decatur’s inland calm to the explosive roar of a Florida launch. Every time she docks and the rockets are carefully wheeled off toward the launch pad, the ship’s work is almost invisible.
She’s never shown on the news, never mentioned in the countdown, but without her, the countdown never begins.
She didn’t light the engines when the rocket surges into the heavens, but she always carries the fire to the launch pad.
