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By Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com
Officials from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Lockheed Martin Corporation recently met with the engineers and directors of one of their major suppliers: Claremont’s HiRel Connectors Inc.
HiRel products support NASA’s Orion spacecraft, one of two shuttles used for the Artemis missions.
Experts from NASA and Lockheed were in town visiting Southern California companies to thank them for their contributions to the Artemis 1 spacecraft.
HiRel is an eight-warehouse operation with 480 employees. It was founded in 1967 by local engineer Fred Baumann. Lockheed Martin contracted with HiRel in 2011 to produce connectors that would successfully separate NASA’s Orion craft from the Space Launch System during Artemis missions. Design and production followed years later.
The HiRel D38999 Series III winged, self-locking titanium plugs will help NASA’s Orion spacecraft separate from the Space Launch System rocket over the next few years.
Lockheed Martin’s Chris Chastain, left, shakes hands with HiRel founder Fred Baumann, who acknowledged Lockheed and NASA’s role in the Artemis 1 mission. Mailing photo/Andrew Alonzo
HiRel engineers developed many components for the Orion spacecraft, including separation bolts, frangible screws and explosive transfer lines to help separate Orion from the SLS after liftoff. Orion’s multi-port connectors for switching on different systems; Monitoring systems for collecting data and distributing power in spacecraft, temperature control and recovery during fall, and processors that clean the astronauts’ air supply.
Chris Chastain of Lockheed Martin says, “Hyryl’s components are like the nervous system of a space shuttle. “The software becomes like the brain.”
The cabling, connectors and systems Hyrel is producing are only a small part of what goes into the Orion capsule. Parts for the Orion and SLS rockets are generally made by Aerojet Rocketdyne, Boeing Co., Jacobs Solutions, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman Corp. and about 4,000 suppliers across the country, including about 500 from California, according to NASA. Learn about Artemis partners at go.nasa.gov and nasa.gov.
Artemis 1, an unmanned lunar orbiter mission and test of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, successfully launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on November 15, 2022. After completing an orbit around the moon, the rocket landed in the Pacific Ocean on December 11. 2022.
The Artemis II mission will be the first manned trip to the Moon in more than five decades. A 10-day flight next year will test the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft and NASA’s deep space exploration capabilities. The four-person crew, made up of astronauts from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, includes Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA; Pomona native and pilot Victor Glover, NASA; and Mission Specialist Christina Hammock Koch, NASA; and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, CSA. Biographies are available at nasa.gov.
The upcoming Artemis projects aim to land the first woman and first black man on the moon. Chastain touched on what the missions mean to NASA and what the future holds for humanity.
“Fifty years ago we had the space race and landed on the moon with Apollo,” he said. “Since then, our national space program has focused on continued work with humans in space, which is why we built the space shuttle and the International Space Station. The Artemis mission will take that permanent presence in low Earth orbit all the way to the Moon. With the goal of one day going to Mars, we will have a continuous stay on the surface of the moon to develop the technologies and capabilities we want to go to.
“It’s a long way.”
A second Orion and SLS rocket and Artemis II mission are planned for November 2024. To learn more about NASA and the Artemis missions, visit nasa.gov. HiRel, visit hirelco.net.
“[Artemis] Noting that there is water on the moon, Blaine Brown of Lockheed Martin is exploring the moon in areas we’ve never gone before. “The future will stimulate all kinds of new discoveries and future industries. It’s going to be awesome.”
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