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Production is choreographed and efficient.
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The overhead lights stay on 24 hours a day, while workers pedal bikes or ride motorized carts past huge aluminum rings, curved panels and partially assembled rockets in the cavernous factory. The temperature is controlled at 72 degrees year-round as a quality-assurance measure. Inside the facility, the production floor is spotless. Boeing and Lockheed Martin joined forces in 2006 to form ULA, a move that ultimately shifted Atlas V production and additional work to Decatur. Around 1,000 employees work at the 35-acre facility that opened in March 1999 as a Boeing Co. The 1.6 million-square-foot ULA rocket factory stands like a giant white box on a flat Decatur landscape. “Alabama workers helped put a man on the moon in the 1960s with the Saturn program, and the Atlas and Delta rockets made in Alabama today send satellites aloft on critical missions.” “The United Launch Alliance plant in Decatur is prime example of Alabama’s deep and varied expertise in aerospace,” Alabama Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield said. Marshall today is developing the Space Launch System, the next-generation rocket that could one day carry man on a mission to Mars. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, located at the Arsenal, developed the Saturn launch vehicles that took man to the moon and the propulsion system that powered the Space Shuttle. The nation’s first ballistic missile came from work performed at Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal, which remains a center of testing and development for Army missile programs. The Decatur ULA factory is a landmark in Alabama’s aerospace industry and fits in squarely with the state’s heritage in rockets and missiles. In particular, ULA is dedicated to support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs, which he is “inspiring the next generation of rocket scientists and engineers.”
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Langford said ULA is committed to giving back to the greater Decatur community, supporting many non-profits, schools and economic development efforts in Morgan County. “Decatur also is an ideal location logistically, with great access to waterways that provide us the ability to deliver our rockets via the Mariner to Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.” “As the nation’s rocket company, United Launch Alliance is proud to have a major presence in Decatur, Alabama,” said Craig Langford, ULA’s vice president of production operations. “Our choice of Decatur for our production facilities has helped ULA meet and exceed our commitments to our customers, including NASA and the Department of Defense. The satellites carried by ULA rockets can cost between $200 million and $1 billion. Organizations including NASA, the Defense Department, and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) depend on these made-in-Alabama rockets to carry out their work. The Curiosity Rover, for example, departed for Mars atop an Atlas V for its investigation of whether the Red Planet once could have supported microbial life. ULA rockets also have carried payloads on interplanetary exploratory missions that have expanded man’s understanding of the universe.