UPPER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa.- A nearly 70-year partnership between one of the Lehigh Valley’s two Fortune 500 companies and an agency with truly out-of-this-world ambitions remains strong.

On Wednesday, industrial gas company Air Products announced it had secured more than $140 million in contracts from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA.

Air Products, headquartered in Lehigh County, will supply liquid hydrogen to several NASA facilities: the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida; NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.  

The total load of liquid hydrogen is 36.5 million pounds. NASA uses it in a number of space flight processes and simulations.

Air Products’ working relationship with NASA began in 1957. It has provided the liquid hydrogen and other industrial gases used in a number of space programs, including the Apollo, Space Shuttle, and Orion missions. 

“For decades, Air Products has consistently demonstrated our ability to supply world-scale levels of liquid hydrogen and other industrial gases safely and reliably through our robust supply chain. We’re proud to play a role in helping NASA confidently continue its important work,” said Francesco Maione, Air Products’ President of the Americas, in a news release.

Last year, Air Products completed the first fill of the world’s largest hydrogen sphere at the Kennedy Space Center. To complete the job, Air Products had to deliver more than 50 trailer loads of liquid hydrogen—over 730,000 gallons in all.

The NASA hydrogen sphere measures 90 feet tall and 83 feet wide. The massive tank supports the agency’s Artemis missions, which were launched with the intention of getting a human back on the surface of the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.