Michoud Assembly Facility
NASA rocket manufacturing complex in Michoud, New Orleans / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) is an 832-acre (1.3 sq mi; 3.4 km2) manufacturing complex owned by NASA in New Orleans East, a section of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States. Organizationally it is part of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and is currently a multi-tenant complex[2] to allow commercial and government contractors, as well as government agencies, to use the site.
Michoud Assembly Facility | |
---|---|
Built | 1940 |
Location | New Orleans East |
Coordinates | 30°01′30″N 89°54′54″W |
Industry | Aerospace |
Products | Rockets stages and parts |
Employees | 4,200 |
Architect | Andrew Higgins[1] |
Buildings | 4 |
Area | 832 acres (337 ha) |
Owner(s) | NASA |
MAF is one of the largest manufacturing plants in the world with 43 environmentally controlled acres—174,000 m2 (1,870,000 sq ft)—under one roof, and it employs more than 4,200 people.[3] From September 1961 to the end of the Apollo program in December 1972 the site was utilized by Chrysler Corporation to build the first stages of the Saturn I and Saturn IB, later joined by Boeing Corporation to build the first stage of the Saturn V rockets.[4] From September 5, 1973, to September 20, 2010, the factory was used for the construction of the Space Shuttle's external fuel tanks by Martin Marietta Corporation.[5]