John C. Stennis Space Center - History

History

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. Also, the site required barge access as the rocket motors to be tested for Apollo were too large for overland transport.

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. Remnants of the communities, including city streets and a one-room school house, still exist within the facility.

The 13,500 acres (55 km2) site was selected on October 25, 1961 on the Mississippi Test Facility or Pearl River Site. On December 18, 1961 NASA officially designated the facility as NASA Mississippi Test Operations. The test area (officially known as the Fee Area) is surrounded by a 125,000 acres (506 km2) acoustical buffer zone. The facility's large concrete and metal test stands were originally used to test-fire the first and second stages of the Saturn V rockets. 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 on June 14, 1974 and renamed National Space Technology Laboratories a name that continued until May 20, 1988 when it was renamed for Mississippi senator and space program supporter John C. Stennis.

With the end of the Apollo program, use of the base decreased, with economic impact to the surrounding communities. Over the years other government organizations have moved to the facility, providing a major economic benefit to the communities.

In the 1990s, a new test complex named "E" was constructed to test a variety of new engine concepts. A series of tests conducted there eventually led to the commercialization of hybrid rocket motors, one of which was used to power the first privately funded spaceship, Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne.

Two 250,000 gallon water tanks at the facility, used to test equipment for the Navy, were used to film the underwater sequences in the film Double Jeopardy.

The facility was damaged in late August 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. In 2007 Rolls-Royce plc opened an outdoor aero engine test facility at John C. Stennis. The test stand is built on the old H1 test bed, Rolls-Royce relocated their engine testing facility from Hucknall near its main Derby site in the UK due to noise pollution issues.