Alabama's role in space includes the lofty work of designing spacecraft, and the more down-to-earth job of providing raw materials, including rocks.
Alabama river rocks provide a stable crawlerway surface to move rockets from the assembly building to the launch pad. The new Alabama-designed SLS rocket will move along and over those rocks on March 17th as the four-mile ground portion of its un-crewed trip to the moon begins.
"NASA has a history of buying rocks from Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia due to their proximity to Florida. The last river rock order placed came from Jemison, Alabama for a major upgrade completed in 2014. Since then, smaller upgrades have been made as needed. In total, the crawlerway currently contains about 70,000 tons of Alabama river rock. Prior to the launch of Artemis II, the team at Kennedy will perform another major upgrade on the crawlerway." (NASA News Release)
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| Tim Lennox |
From the city of Huntsville's website:
"The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville managed the SLS rocket components’ design and development and the bulk of the core stage fabrication occurred at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The solid rocket boosters were fabricated at the ATK/Orbital Science/Northrop Grumman Ogden, Utah, plant.
Guidance and control systems for the rocket were also developed and tested at MSFC."
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