NASA officially unveiled in New Orleans their latest, three-story cylindrical structure on Friday. It is said to be a main component for constructing heavy-lifts rockets for the agency’s space programs.
The structure dubbed as the “vertical weld center,” is composed of heavy metal frameworks that cling to the most modern automated welding equipment. Boeing Co. will build key components of the rockets that NASA will use for its new Space Launch System called “core state of the SLS rockets.”
Every central part of the stage is said to be more than 200 feet tall, and around 27.5 feet in diameter. Every part of the segment will be assembled around the vertical weld center. Each of the stage will have nine sections composed of eight independent bent aluminum panels, which were welded using a machine that glides up and down inside the cylinder, that’s a quarter of a mile’s worth of welding, said Rich Navarro, an executive for Boeing who was present for the ribbon cutting Friday.
Local government officials joined representatives from Boeing and NASA during the ribbon-cutting in the new site that holds that new machine at the Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans.
NASA chose the Michoud facility back in 2011 to assemble the SLS components, the eastern area of New Orleans needed the project to boost the economy of the local area after the space shuttle program ended. In the 80’s, the facility employed a little over a thousand employees in construction sites for enormous external fuel tanks for the shuttles.
Today, around 250 persons are employed for the SLS project at the Michoud facility. The number is still expected to increase by up to 500 as the project progresses, according the public affairs office for the SLS System, Kim Henry. At the moment, the contract that Michoud has is for two core stages.
NASA also presented illustrations of the components of the Space Launch System such as the picture above. That is just one of the parts of the most powerful and largest rocket in history.
