The sheer scope and function of a rocket facility creates an atypical set of challenges. See how one firm took the project from concept to liftoff.

Traditionally, manufacturing facilities are not air conditioned except in extremely warm climates. Often, even in warm climates, air conditioning found in these facilities is limited to those areas where processes are temperature- and humidity-sensitive. Least common of all is to air condition an entire 1.5 million-sq-ft manufacturing facility, especially one with a standard ceiling height over 50 ft and with high bay structures as high as 120 ft.

The Boeing Company, with the help of The Austin Company, has created a state-of-the-industry hvac system that controls the environment of its entire brand-new rocket factory in Decatur, AL. The facility is fully air conditioned to accommodate a low tolerance for temperature and humidity change due to thermal expansion/contraction and moisture-sensitive characteristics of the materials used to fabricate the rocket's booster core. The only air conditioning for creature comfort is in the staff office areas, which comprise a very small percentage of the overall building square footage.

The Boeing Delta Rocket Factory, completed in late December 1999, is located on 175 acres of a 410-acre site in the Mallard Fox Creek Industrial Park and Port located one mile from the Tennessee River. The rocket manufacturing factory has been designed with all the equipment and processes matched to produce Delta-class launch vehicles as efficiently as possible. The river provides a major portion of the route for delivery of the largest of these, the 165-ft-long, 16.7-ft-diameter Delta IV rocket's first stage, from the factory to launch sites at Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida or California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.