The Delta rocket and its production team in Pueblo. Photo: Boeing

The 100th booster built in a southeastern Colorado facility for Boeing Delta rockets is being readied for delivery to Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla.

"In April 1987, a workforce of 60 occupied a newly completed 65,000-square-foot building," said Phil Marshall, general manager. "Today, there are 367 employees working in approximately 400,000 square feet of owned and leased building space."

"This growth is the result of continued improvement in productivity and consistent dedication to quality," remarked Gale Schluter, vice president and general manager of Expendable Launch Systems in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Located between launch complexes at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., the Boeing facility is part of Pueblo's Memorial Airport Industrial Complex. Its primary function is assembly, integration and test of the Delta 2 and Delta 3 first, second and interstages, payload attach fittings, spintable and fairings, as well as the upper stage and four-meter fairing for the Delta 4 Medium.

Pueblo also provides complete product coordination and acceptance review with customers, launch sites, suppliers, program management and design teams.

File photo gives an aerial view of a Delta 2 rocket launching into space. Photo: USAF

When first opened, the facility's employees manufactured the first stage booster of the Delta expendable launch vehicle, which resumed production in 1986 following the Space Shuttle Challenger accident.

Delta 2 rockets launched four NASA scientific missions, carried a record 16 Globalstar communications satellites into orbit and placed a Global Positioning System satellite into orbit for the U.S. Air Force during 1999.

In October 1996, a new $7.4-million, 30,000-square-foot building contracted by Lockheed Martin began operations. The new building contains a computer-controlled robotic system that applies thermal protective coating to the fairings of U.S. Air Force Titan 4 rockets.

The Titan 4 fairings are manufactured by Boeing at its Huntington Beach plant and then shipped to Pueblo under contract to Lockheed Martin. They are used to protect payloads onboard the Titan 4.