New Orleans Sends America Back to Space ⚜️🚀🇺🇸

On Wednesday evening, Artemis II launched from Cape Canaveral, sending four astronauts on a mission around the Moon and farther into space than any humans before.

New Orleans built the core stage of the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket NASA has ever developed, which lifted Artemis II into space. Since the 1960s, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans East has been “America’s Rocket Factory,” building the hardware that powers human spaceflight, from Apollo to the Space Shuttle to today’s Space Launch System.

Here are key mission details:

• Artemis II launched on April 1, sending four astronauts on a 10-day mission around the Moon

  Scheduled return is Friday, April 10
• The mission marks the first crewed lunar flight in more than 50 years, often described as this generation’s “Apollo 8 moment”
• Artemis III and IV will follow, which will land the first woman and person of color on the surface of the moon

And about New Orleans’ Michoud facility:

• Michoud has supported human spaceflight for 55+ years
• The facility employs about 1,800 people on-site
• The Michoud site has always been tied to national priorities, from Higgins boats that landed in Normandy during World War II, to the production of Sherman and Patton tank engines during the Korean War. In 1961, NASA Administrator Wernher von Braun chose New Orleans as the manufacturing home for the nation’s space program

There are multiple entities involved in the historic effort:

• Boeing leads production of the SLS core stage, the largest part of the 322-foot-tall rocket, which stores super-cooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to fuel the four RS-25 engines
• Lockheed Martin is building the launch abort system and the crew and service modules, which compose the Orion spacecraft that houses the astronauts
• Local workforce pipelines, including the Nunez Advanced Manufacturing Technology Program, are feeding talent directly into Michoud
• New Orleans companies like Vivace are pushing the industry forward from New Orleans by building next-generation commercial space station structures on-site at Michoud

Finally, GNO, Inc. has been working for years to help send humankind back to space via Greater New Orleans:

• Following the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, fighting, along with federal and state leaders, to keep Michoud open
• Working with many of the companies in and around Michoud, to provide advocacy, workforce, and other support
• Leading workforce programs, like GNO RAAMP (Regional Aerospace & Advanced Manufacturing Partnership), to connect residents to aerospace jobs
• Organizing annual internships for local students at Michoud
• Actively supporting the development of “Propel Park” at Michoud
• Promotion of the space story – for example, the Artemis logo projected on the Super Dome was conceived and designed by GNO, Inc. (see below)
• Welcoming the Artemis II astronauts (see below)

You can read more about the historic Artemis launch here.

From New Orleans, to beyond! 💫