No, you won't see an ES44AC blasting off at Cape Canaveral...at least not yet...but Wabtec, a supplier best known for locomotives, air brake equipment, and various rail industry needs had a hand in last month's Artemis spacecraft launch.
Wabtec Inspection Technologies, a division acquired from the Olympus Corporation, provided important inspection and testing services (including ultrasonic) for Artemis II. For more details, visit Wabtec's outline of their contribution to Artemis II: Link: Upon Closer Inspection: Wabtec, Artemis II, and the New Space Race | Wabtec Corporation
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“Our Nondestructive Testing (NDT) solutions, those capable of performing advanced inspections, come in many form factors, from handhelds for manual use to fully automated robotic cells, and are in widespread use across industries,” says Karen Smith, Senior Vice President, Wabtec Inspection Technologies. “Specifically, in aerospace, they have become an industry standard and are ubiquitous across the operations of market leaders.”
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This is not the first notable rail industry participation in aerospace. Railroads moved space vehicle parts for NASA during the shuttle era, while ALCO 251-series diesel engines were used in the crawler transporter that moved a variety of spacecrafts from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center to launchpads 39A and B. Finally, one can still see Boeing 737 fuselages from the Spirit Aerosystems manufacturing facilities in Kansas to final assembly in Washington State.
Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls via Wabtec.com