Starting in 1971, all Space Shuttle Main Engines were flight-certified at Stennis. The facility was renamed again to Mississippi Test Facility on July 1, 1965, became a part of the Marshall Space Flight Center. The facility's large concrete and metal rocket propulsion test stands were originally used to test-fire the first and second stages of the Saturn V rockets. The test area (officially known as the Fee Area) is surrounded by a 125,000 acre (506 km 2) acoustical buffer zone. On December 18, 1961, NASA officially designated the facility as NASA Mississippi Test Operations. The 13,500 acres (55 km 2) site was selected on October 25, 1961, on the Mississippi Test Facility or Pearl River Site. Remnants of the communities, including city streets and a one-room school house, still exist within the facility. The effort acquired more than 3,200 parcels of privately owned land – 786 residences, 16 churches, 19 stores, three schools and a wide assortment of commercial buildings, including nightclubs and community centers.
NASA SPACE CENTER PLUS
The selected area was thinly populated and met all other requirements however before construction began, five small communities (Gainesville, Logtown, Napoleon, Santa Rosa, and Westonia), plus the northern portion of a sixth ( Pearlington), and a combined population of 700 families had to be completely relocated off the facility. Army Corps of Engineers with the difficult task to procure each land parcel either by directly purchasing the land or through acquisition of a perpetual easement. A high-terrace area bordering the East Pearl River in Hancock County, Miss., was selected for its location. 25, 1961, for testing engines for the Apollo Program. A more isolated site was needed.Īfter an exhaustive site selection process that included reviews of other coastal locations including Eglin Air Force Base in Florida plus islands in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, NASA announced formation of the Mississippi Test Facility (now known as Stennis Space Center) on Oct. Additionally, the Apollo motors were too loud to be tested at Marshall Space Flight Center's existing test stands near Huntsville, Alabama. Also, the site required barge access as the rocket stages to be tested for Apollo were too large for overland transport. The initial requirements for NASA's proposed rocket testing facility required the site to be located between the rockets' manufacturing facility at Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, and the launch facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
There are over 50 local, state, national, international, private, and public companies and agencies using SSC for their rocket testing facilities. As of 2012, it is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. Stennis Space Center ( SSC) is a NASA rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi, United States, on the banks of the Pearl River at the Mississippi– Louisiana border.
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