The importance of the many small businesses around the country that contribute to Orion cannot be overstated. Orion, the nation’s new deep space crew vehicle, is in development and will fly in 2018 on a mission past the moon and back to Earth.
During this unmanned mission, the spacecraft’s systems will be evaluated and its performance assessed. Future missions will carry humans onboard, and the vehicle will take us to a variety of deep space destinations.
Now small businesses – what kind of services do they provide? How do they benefit as a result of being part of NASA’s Orion program?
Let’s take a closer look at two of these important small businesses.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin.
In Oklahoma, a small business of 111 team members has been supporting Orion directly since 2012. Frontier Electronic Systems (FES) is a woman-owned small business and Native-American business enterprise. The company worked on four circuit card assemblies for the environmental control system of Orion through parts management subcontracts from UTC Aerospace Systems. The company then received contracts to manufacture each of the circuit card assemblies.
FES has also supported the avionics team of the prime contractor for Orion, Lockheed Martin, with direct design for testing, manufacturing and test support. In October 2014, the company received the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Program Manager’s Commendation.
The business has received substantial benefits through their involvement with NASA’s Orion program. FES was introduced to three new customers that they would not have had the chance to support before their contribution to Orion. New opportunities for the company to grow in multiple programs including the Space Launch System, unmanned satellites and military ground systems have resulted from FES support of Orion. Furthermore, FES has been able to provide their technical team with career and skills development opportunities.
Another small business, GHG Corporation, has been contributing to Orion since October 2006. The small disadvantaged business has 370 employees. GHG contributes to extravehicular activity suits, interfaces and crew survival through design, development, manufacturing, testing, certification and delivery.
Engineers from GHG support water and waste management as well as systems for environmental control and life support. Software quality engineers from the company support the Orion Software Assurance Program and also audit software products and processes for Orion.
Supporting Orion has made it possible for GHG to grow the company and expand their core capabilities in multiple areas – structural analysis for mechanisms, thermal protection systems, and landing and recovery systems. The company performs classical stress calculations now in addition to being able to perform in-depth analysis of structures for human space flight.
Taking a closer look at just two of the many hundreds of small businesses supporting Orion, we gain a better understanding of the important roles they play and how they benefit as a result of their involvement in NASA’s Orion program – the program that is enabling the nation to send humans to deep space and return them safely to Earth.
For more about Orion, visit NASA.gov.