BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (AP) — The former Mississippi Army Ammunition Plant facility and its 1.6 million square feet of space have been transferred to NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center.
The munitions plant increases space at Stennis by about 33 percent and will be used to attract employers that complement NASA's mission. Besides Pratt & Whitney, a dozen other companies and agencies already operating there are the Government Printing Office, the Department of Energy and the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage.
The Army opened the ammo plant in the 1978 and closed in 1983. Ammunition production ended in 1990 and the Army leased space until 2009.
Patrick Scheuermann, director of the Stennis Space Center, says Stennis will continue to support NASA's mission to maintain the world's best rocket engine test facility.