Michoud Assembly Facility

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The Michoud Assembly Facility is an 832 acre (3.4 km²) site owned by NASA and located in New Orleans East, Louisiana. It is used for the construction of the Space Shuttle's External tanks by its lead contractor Lockheed Martin. It is one of the largest manufacturing plants in the world with 43 acres (174,000 m²) under one roof and employs approximately 2000 people.

The facility was originally constructed in 1940 by the United States government for the war production during World War II to make plywood cargo planes and landing craft. During the Korean War it made engines for Sherman and Patton tanks.

It came under the management of the NASA in 1961 and was used for the construction of the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V rocket and the S-IB first stage of the Saturn IB rocket. It is home to the first stage of the last constructed Saturn V, SA-515.

The facility was damaged by Hurricane Katrina, with all shifts initially cancelled up to September 26, 2005, potentially setting back further Shuttle flights. All the buildings and the shuttle hardware within survived the hurricane without grave damage, but the roof of the main building was breached and debris damaged one of the fuel tanks stored inside. On September 16, 2005 NASA announced^[1] that the repairs were progressing faster than anticipated, and so they will continue to use Michoud for external tank work.

Reference

• ^  - September 16, 2005 NASA press release stating that they plan to resume work at the facility, despite damaged cause by Hurricane Katrina. [2]

External links

• Maps and aerial photos
  • Street map from Google Local or Yahoo! Maps
  • Topographic map from TopoZone
  • Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
  • Satellite image from Google Local or Microsoft Virtual Earth
• Michoud Operations
• GlobalSecurity.org
• Status report after the hurricane