CLIENT: NASA
Stennis Space Center, Mississippi
The B-1/B-2 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center (SSC) is a dual-position, vertical-firing facility built in the 1960s to test Saturn V rocket stages that carried humans to the Moon during the Apollo Program. The B-1 side is equipped for single-engine tests. The B-2 side is designed to test rocket stages. Since the first testing of Saturn V rocket stages, the B Test Stand has tested S-IC flight stages, the Space Shuttle Main Propulsion Test Article, and the Delta 4 Common Booster Core. To prepare for testing the core stage of the new Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built and the cornerstone of the Artemis Program, NASA required the B Test Stand to be modified. The Artemis Program is NASA’s next mission to the Moon and beyond.
In 2015, Advon was awarded a contract for the removal and replacement of approximately 22,000 sf of parking lot/tarmac for the NASA SLS Program. To reinstall the parking lot/tarmac, extensive underground sewer piping, domestic water piping, HVAC piping, and a sanitary sewer pump station had to be removed and replaced. Due to the loose and unconsolidated underlying soils, soil improvements were necessary. The soils were improved by means of jet grout columns and aggregate piers.