This story was updated at 5:32 p.m.
EDT.
NASA's Michoud
Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where space shuttle external tanks are
assembled, and Stennis Space Center in Mississippi
have weathered the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.
So far, Katrina has been
responsible for more than 80 deaths and billions of dollars of destruction
along the Gulf Coast. In the next few days and weeks, those totals are likely
to increase and Katrina will likely rank as one of the most
devastating hurricanes ever.
"My heart goes out to all the people affected by this
hurricane," said NASA Chief Michael Griffin in a written statement.
"I will be visiting Stennis and the Michoud Assembly Facility soon to talk with our
people."
While water leakage and damage
at the Michoud have been reported, emergency teams at
the site advise that the huge tanks appear to be okay.
"We're in a low area, so we
had one or two feet of water yesterday. That has drained down now," said Harry
Wadsworth, a Lockheed Martin spokesman for Michoud
operations. "Obviously, the area is still wet, but it's drying out. We did get
some roof damage...some damage to some windows, and tree limbs hitting windows."
Lockheed Martin Space
Systems operates the sprawling facility for NASA.
Other centers affected
NASA's Stennis Space Center
near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi suffered water and roof damage, though the full
extent of the damage is still undetermined, NASA officials said, adding that hundreds
of Stennis employees and their family members took
shelter at the center during the storm.
While the space agency's Marshall Space Flight Center
in Huntsville, Alabama also sustained minor damage, the facility is supporting
recovery efforts at both Stennis and Michoud. MSFC officials (MSFC) dispatched a pair of
helicopters to deliver communications equipment and other supplies to the two
space centers.
"They took satellite phones and other equipment," NASA
spokesperson Katherine Trinidad told SPACE.com.
"Land lines aren't working, or cell phones, or Internet at those sites."
Trinidad said it is still too early to estimate the
cost of the damage Katrina caused, nor how the damage will affect NASA's
preparations for its next shuttle flight.
Before the hurricane hit, engineers at Michoud were working to solve foam debris shedding problems
with NASA's shuttle external tanks. The shuttle Discovery is slated to launch
the agency's STS-121 mission no earlier than March 2006.
Initial assessment
"The external tanks are
okay. The initial assessment is good for them. Just one of them had a little
water on it," Wadsworth told SPACE.com in a telephone interview today.
"We keep them all inside in the factory, or the vertical assembly building, or
our process and checkout building."
As Hurricane Katrina pounded
the area, eight shuttle external tanks, in different stages of being
retrofitted, were at the Michoud facility, Wadsworth
said.
The 832-acre NASA Michoud Assembly Facility is located in New Orleans,
Louisiana some 24 miles (38 kilometers) from New Orleans International Airport
and 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the French Quarter.
"Some of our buildings got a
little wet from the hurricane, but it was sporadic," Wadsworth added.
Wadsworth said that a
hurricane emergency crew has been tending the facility, even as the storm
roared through the area. That team consisted of about 20 to 25 people. "They're
safe. They were up in a very tough concrete building up on the second floor
where our emergency operations center is located," he said.
That team has been busy
today assessing the property, Wadsworth explained. "We're doing pretty good," he said, with plans to reopen the facility on
September 6.
Future use of tanks
The Michoud
facility features one of the world's largest manufacturing plants (43 acres
under one roof) and a port with deep-water access for the transportation of the
large external tanks by barge across the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida and up
to Kennedy Space Center.
The shuttle external tank is
154 feet (46 meters) long, 28 feet (eight meters) in diameter and is the
largest single component of the space shuttle system.
Even with a planned shutdown
of the shuttle program in 2010, NASA planners are eyeing further use of the
external tank as an element of a proposed heavy-lift launcher to support Moon,
Mars and beyond exploration initiatives.
The Space Shuttle Propulsion
Office at NASA's Marshall Center manages the external tank work. Lockheed
Martin Space Systems Company in New Orleans is the primary contractor.
SPACE.com staff writer Tariq Malik contributed to
this story from New York City.
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