Small Stillwater company helps launch NASA's Artemis I project
STILLWATER, Okla. (KFOR) - A small Stillwater company may not have the biggest name, but that does not mean they are not taking on a big challenge.
Frontier Electronic Systems is helping NASA in the massive moon exploration project called Artemis I.
"To think that relatively small company here at Stillwater gets to play a part in in this is really, really phenomenal,” said Frontier Electronic Systems program manager, Darryl Smith.
It is a 40-year-old company that makes electronics for the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA - like engine fuel displays for F-18 fighter jets and radar equipment for the U.S. Navy.
They have also worked with other big-name companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Over the past two decades though, they have soared to new heights.
"We've also been involved in doing a lot of things for space for the last 20 years or so,” Smith said. “Satellites, International Space Station."
Smith said their hand in the massive moon rocket project Artemis I happened through word-of-mouth.
"We probably have, I don't know, probably 12 or 16 different electrical components that we build for the prime contractors that are used on the mission,” Smith said.
Their electrical components span from the Orion spacecraft that holds the astronauts to the SLS, or space launch system rocket, below it. Those components work with the launch abort system, the hand controllers that steer the capsule, and what would basically be the power steering near the bottom of the SLS rocket.
That is also just a few of them.
"We're really excited and privileged basically to be able to build these components,” Smith said.
It is just a notch in the belt for the small Stillwater company that is reaching for the stars.
"When quality really is critical, when you've got manned space missions where people's lives are in the balance, they really want the highest quality components that they can get,” Smith said.
The Artemis I launch that is set to take astronauts around the moon has been scrubbed a couple times due to an engine leak. Smith said he believes they will have it figured out and launch sometime in October.
He said the company is also building circuit cards for missions that may go beyond the moon.