Michoud Assembly and Global Security
Located in eastern New Orleans, NASA’s Lockheed Martin Michoud Space Systems’s Assembly Facility is on 832-acre site owned by NASA since 1961, with the primary product being the External Tank for the Space Shuttle. Government owned, contractor operated, it is a component of the George C. Marshall Flight Center. The mission of the Michoud facility is to support NASA’s space shuttle program, continuing its development and operations of NASA, particularly the design and assembly of the external tank for the space shuttle.
Over an average of 2,000 employees, it has been and will become again one of New Orlean’s largest employers, bringing their depleting economy to the front of new growth. One of the world’s largest manufacturing plants, it has access of a port with deep-water access for large space structure transportation—towing on a barge across the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida, and up toward the Kennedy Space Center.
The land of which Michoud is located had quite a history, part of a 34,500-acre French Royal land grant to local merchant, the Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent in 1763. At a later date, the land was purchased by Antoine Michoud, a French transplant who was the son of Napoleon’s Administrator of Domains. Michoud died in 1863, owner of a sugar cane plantation and refinery, which was operated after his death by heirs who also kept the original St. Maxent estate intact into the 1900s. The two brick smokestacks are historical reminders of the original refinery are still visible and historic reminders of the past.
Supporting the efforts of World War II, a production building which was built of 43 acres under its roof was completed. Later on, in the Korean conflict the Chrysler Corporation had received a contract for the development of manufacturing tank cylinder heads at Michoud. Renovation tasks involved a complete dismantling and relocation of a foundry from Chicago to Michoud, while also designing, procuring and installing several hundred tons of humidity-control equipment for the 47-acre structure. Even though the pilot production line went into operation, the plant actually never went into full production because of changing requirements.
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2007 at 8:26 pm and is filed under Mission History, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
