Spray Foam Applicator is Awarded NASA’s Silver Snoopy Award

NEW ORLEANS, LA - July 2011 - The Silver Snoopy award is presented by NASA astronauts to only one percent of all NASA government and contractor personnel and is one of the agency’s highest honors. The Snoopy is specifically given to employees who display the highest achievements in dedication to quality work and flight safety.

Craig Capdepon, 55, has worked on every one of the 134 shuttle fuel tanks at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Capdepon specialized in the highly technical job of hand-spraying foam onto intricate pieces of these fuel tanks. Closed cell foam insulation was carefully sprayed foam from a Gusmer spray foam gun in the confines of a cramped and steaming-hot “spray booth,” under the supervision of engineers and stringent quality control inspectors.

Craig Capdepon recently received the NASA Silver Snoopy award from astronaut Alvin Drew.  In a quote to USA Today about working on the shuttle “it has just been incredible,” he says. “I’m just very glad I was able to be part of it.”
Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans is a world-class manufacturing facility providing vital support to NASA exploration and discovery missions. Michoud's capabilities include the manufacture and assembly of critical hardware components for the space shuttle and exploration vehicles under development at Marshall and other NASA field centers. Michoud is a NASA-owned facility managed by Marshall Space Flight Center.

Michoud is unique in that it contains one of the largest production buildings in the nation, which includes a vertical assembly building for stacking external tank components for the space shuttle program. Michoud supports several major projects for NASA’s Constellation Program, which is developing America’s next generation of space transportation vehicles. Michoud’s highly skilled workforce will manufacture and assemble the upper stage of the Ares I rocket, the core stage and Earth departure stage of the Ares V cargo rocket, and the Orion crew exploration vehicle, and will conduct final systems integration and checkout of Ares I avionics systems.