On February 3rd our CEO, Mary Ellen Henry, participated in a field trip with the MePol CEO Roundtable group to the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.
This must be one of the best kept secrets in the USA. Michoud is a world class manufacturing facility with over 832 acres providing vital support to
NASA in their many quests, to include building the Orion rocket and the Space Launch System, the next generation of space transport vehicles. But not
only is NASA there, so is the USDA, the US Coast Guard, BP, DOI, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Blade Dynamics to name a few.
Michoud contains one of the largest buildings in the USA which has a huge vertical assembly building providing a critical resource for stacking components.
As an example, the Space Shuttle had 15-story tall external tanks made at Michoud so you know there are some large spaces in this building!
Today, Michoud is a flurry of economic development. Since the facility is a city within a city, they are recruiting businesses that could take further
advantage of the leading-edge manufacturing capacities of the current tenants. Below is a partial list of the cool things being done at Michoud. If
you get a chance, take a tour. You will be blown away! Mars here we come in 2032!
Some of the State-of-the-Art Manufacturing Capabilities:
- Friction Stir Welding
- Composite Fabrication & Cure
- Non-Destructive Evaluation
- (2) Hi-Gantry Machining Centers
- Enclosed, Environmentally Controlled Fiber Placement Room
- Advanced Laboratory Services
- Mechanical and Chemical Testing
- 37 Machine Shops
- Tooling and Engineering