THE VALLEY'S FINAL FRONTIER STATION'S PARTS ARE MADE HERE.Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer CANOGA PARK - There is little to distinguish Falcon Products Co. from other small firms along the 12700 block of Foothill Boulevard The following streets are named Foothill Boulevard:
rugby, rugby football, rugger - a form of football played with an oval ball rugby, rugby football, rugger - a form of football played with an oval ball the door because it is locked during business hours BUSINESS HOURS. The time of the day during which business is transacted. In respect to the time of presentment and demand of bills and notes, business hours generally range through the whole day down to the hours of rest in the evening, except when the paper is payable it a bank or by a . The products turned out by the 13-employee machine shop are out of this world, though. Way out. Roughly 200 nautical miles straight up, where they are zipping along at 17,186.76 mph as part of the International Space Station, which took on a different shape last week during the sixth visit by a space shuttle space shuttle, reusable U.S. space vehicle. Developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it consists of a winged orbiter, two solid-rocket boosters, and an external tank. . Falcon made about 50 parts for the space habitat A space habitat, also called space colony, orbital colony, or space settlement is a space station intended as a permanent settlement rather than as a simple waystation or other specialized facility. , a daunting daunt tr.v. daunt·ed, daunt·ing, daunts To abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay. [Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin task considering the exacting standards demanded by their final destination. ``I gotta tell you "Gotta Tell You" is the debut single by Samantha Mumba released in 2000. It was an international hit, peaking at 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 1 in New Zealand. It also reached 2 in the UK. all the grief and worry about the parts are worth it. You look at TV and you see the guys going up there . . . and we made parts for it. It still boggles the mind,'' said June Aletano, Falcon's owner, during an interview in her small office decorated with mementos of space shuttle launches and autographed pictures of astronauts. Falcon is one of about 50 San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. area firms playing roles large and small in the construction of the next generation of man's remote outpost in the cosmos. It is arguably humankind's most ambitious, and challenging, engineering project. And at roughly $86 billion, including about $26 billion in construction costs, the most expensive, too. By the time it is completed late in 2005, the facility, also known as Space Station Alpha, will contain thousands of components developed in the Valley. The project is generating about 40,000 jobs in 20 states, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Steve Genstil, director of safety and mission assurance for the Canoga Park-based Power & Propulsion unit of Boeing Co., which developed the space station's power system. In addition to Valley area companies, Boeing Rocketdyne has 130 suppliers in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, and 152 across the state. Together, it's about $1 billion worth of contract work. The work makes a powerful statement that the region's once powerful aerospace industry may be bruised but is not dead. ``We're Space Valley,'' said Jack Kyser, chief economist The Chief Economist is a single position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis. It is distinguished from the other economist positions by the broader scope of responsibility encompassing the at the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County Economic Development Corp., to whom a little local boosterism boost·er·ism n. The highly supportive attitudes and activities of boosters: "the civic pride and heady boosterism that often accompany rising property values" New York. is not out of bounds. ``It's sort of a one-two punch one-two punch n. 1. A combination of two blows delivered in rapid succession in boxing, especially a left lead followed by a right cross. 2. Informal An especially forceful or effective combination or sequence of two things. . You get to say, wow, we have our equipment on the space station - and people will say that's impressive. And sooner or later these applications are going to filter through to a real-world business and consumer activity.'' That is a strong possibility, since products from something as basic as Tang to advanced communications applications have their roots in the space program. Valley companies supplied a variety of products, from fiber-optic cable to fasteners fasteners In construction, connectors between structural members. Bolted connections are used when it is necessary to fasten two elements tightly together, especially to resist shear and bending, as in column and beam connections. to filters to computer equipment. Boeing's propulsion unit, a big contractor on the power plant project, is no stranger in space, having built the shuttle's main engines that have powered every launch since the first one in 1981. Via a series of mergers, the entire orbiter - the workhorse of the space station project - now carries the Boeing name. It is high-tech, cutting edge work of exacting specifications. But to Michel Szostak, president of M.S. Aerospace in Sylmar, and Jim Cole, the company's vice president of sales and marketing, the space station work is a nuts-and-bolts matter. Founded in 1992, the company survived the loss of its manufacturing facility during the 1994 Northridge Earthquake The Northridge earthquake occurred on January 17, 1994 at 4:31 AM Pacific Standard Time in the city of Los Angeles, California. The earthquake had a "strong" moment magnitude of 6. , a deep recession and the implosion implosion /im·plo·sion/ (im-plo´zhun) see flooding. im·plo·sion n. 1. of the aerospace sector to become a Rocketdyne supplier. M.S. Aerospace's space station role consisted of 241 orders for 21,792 parts worth $1 million. Like a lot of the vendors making components, company executives don't exactly know where on the space station their parts will end up. Many are bolts, which prompts Cole to poke some gentle fun at NASA's nomenclature. ``These bolts can best be described as high-strength structural fasteners suitable for the cryogenic environment in the framework of the International Space Station. Or, in simpler terms, they hold the space station together,'' he said. M.S. Aerospace makes a variety of close-tolerance, high-temperature and high-strength aerospace fasteners. They are used in jet engines, rocket engines and on the space shuttle. While it is not a long-duration project, the space station work is satisfying nonetheless. ``It's not exactly a contract we expect to get a lot of future business on. Once it goes up, hopefully it stays up. But we are very proud of our work on the space station,'' Cole said. So is everyone else working on the project. Joe Villalobos owns Lobart Co. in Pacoima, another small machine shop that makes space station parts. He's been a machinist for more than 50 years and marvels at his contribution to this great adventure. But he's got a good track record - or he would not be on the Rocketdyne team. Villalobos' workers made the wheels on the Mars Rover A Mars rover is an unmanned rover used for exploration of the planet Mars. They are deployed because it has so far been too costly and difficult to achieve a manned mission to Mars, and because probes and satellites are too limited (due to their immobility or their distance from , he says with a small smile. He is more impressed with where his parts end up, though. ``It's amazing sometimes. You realize how important it is to make this stuff right. People's lives depend on it, so everything has to be precise, that's for sure,'' he said. The current visit to the station by space shuttle Endeavor was critical to the overall mission's success, since it will enable the crew of Expedition 1, the collective name given to the resident astronauts, to switch on the Rocketdyne-developed power plant that will run the life-support systems. Last Sunday, space walkers Joe Tanner and Carlos Noriega bolted on the massive P6 truss truss, in architecture and engineering, a supporting structure or framework composed of beams, girders, or rods commonly of steel or wood lying in a single plane. segment, the backbone of the station's power system. It's a big structure, measuring 16 feet by 16 feet by 16 feet and weighing 16,850 pounds. They also installed a $600 million set of solar wings, the largest such array ever deployed in space. Rocketdyne engineers monitored the mission around the clock from the engineering support room at the DeSoto Avenue facility, and the atmosphere became tense late in the afternoon. The solar arrays were tightly compacted into two 20-inch high boxes during launch, and computer commands that would slowly unfurl them to 115 feet failed to work. Engineers huddled in a conference room to troubleshoot the problem. At about 5:20 p.m., mission control in Houston reported that deployment would start in about 45 seconds but there was only 30 seconds more television time left on this particular orbit. When the picture reappeared 13 minutes later, a shuttle camera captured the wing extending out into space. One section was overly slack, a situation corrected with surprising quickness by the astronauts on Thursday, using only their hands and a hook. They were careful to keep their hands away from the braided braid·ed adj. 1. a. Produced by or as if by braiding. b. Having braids. 2. Decorated with braid. 3. wire cables of the solar wing so their gloves would not snag or rip. Al Mooney, owner of Canoga Park-based Mooney Industries, said this kind of care starts back on Earth. His company makes specialized parts for the space station, including a cage for the xenon xenon (zē`nŏn) [Gr.,=strange], gaseous chemical element; symbol Xe; at. no. 54; at. wt. 131.29; m.p. −111.9°C;; b.p. −107.1°C;; density 5.86 grams per liter at STP; valence usually 0. emitter, which bathes a docking shuttle with xenon gas so there won't be a discharge of static electricity. Shuttle astronauts have made numerous visits to Mooney's shop, running their hands along the parts they will be handling to see if there are any sharp edges. Encounter any problem and the part is either given a rounded edge or completely reworked. For example, Mooney made a ladder to help the astronauts better access parts of the station. The first version had slots in the rungs to save weight. A visiting astronaut noted that he could get his hand caught, so the device design had to be changed. Mooney's workers make what he considers 30 to 40 major components for the station, some of which are clearly visible on the structure. ``That really gives us a lot of pride,'' he said. ``We're really thrilled to be part of it. But sometimes it's a little overwhelming.'' When the space station is finished, it will measure 365 feet by 290 feet, contain six labs, house seven astronauts and be the brightest object, next to the moon, in the night sky. It will average 100 kilowatts of power - enough electricity to power 75 homes. Sometimes, under the right conditions, it will even be visible in daylight. And, in a nod to to its home, at times the space station's orbit takes it directly over the Valley. LOCAL FIRMS IN ORBIT Here is a list of some of the San Fernando Valley area firms that are working on the International Space Station as part of the Boeing Co.'s Canoga Park-based Rocketdyne Power & Propulsion unit: Air Elector elector German Kurfürst. Prince of the Holy Roman Empire who had a right to participate in electing the German emperor. Beginning c. 1273, and with the confirmation of the Golden Bull, there were seven electors: the archbishops of Trier, Mainz, Inc. Chatsworth, electric connectors and hardware Alliance Precision Co., Van Nuys, machined components Avibank Mfg. Inc., North Hollywood, machined components AVX AVX Adult Video XXX AVX Avid Visual Extensions AVX anti Virus Expert Filters, Sun Valley, electronic filters A2Z Industries, Northridge, prototype machine shop Barsett Co., Northridge, silk screener Bell Technologies, Van Nuys, electronic components Blake Wire & Cable Corp., Van Nuys, wire and cable California Pantograph Pantograph A four-bar parallel linkage, with no links fixed, used as a copying device for generating geometrically similar figures, larger or smaller in size, within the limits of the mechanism. , Chatsworth, silk screening Cicon Engineering Inc., Chatsworth, Circuit Boards Compaq Computer Corp., Woodland Hills, computers Environment Associates, Chatsworth, electronics tester Fairchild Fasteners Direct, Simi Valley Simi Valley (sē`mē, sĭm`ē), city (1990 pop. 100,217), Ventura co., SW Calif. in an oil, fruit, and farm region; laid out 1887, inc. 1969. , machined components Falcon Products Co., Sylmar, machined components Finn Tool & Instruments Inc., Canoga Park, machined components George B. Woodcock woodcock: see snipe. woodcock Any of five species (family Scolopacidae) of plump, sharp-billed migratory birds of damp, dense woodlands in North America, Europe, and Asia. & Co., Chatsworth, packages parts Gorko Industries Inc., North Hills, machine shop Haskel International Inc., Burbank, hydraulic components Helium Leak Testing Inc., Northridge, test lab Hydro-Mill Co., Chatsworth, machined components Jan Devices Inc., Reseda, electronic component distributor Kinko's, Woodland Hills, copying Laurel Sheet Metal Products Inc., North Hollywood, machine shop Lobart Co., Pacoima, machined components Lockwood Industries Inc., Canoga Park, adhesives maker M.S. Aerospace Inc., Sylmar, machined components Marshall Tool & Supply Corp., Chatsworth, mechanics' tools Micro West Computer, Chatsworth, computer equipment Micro-Steel Inc., Canoga Park, machined components Mooney Industries Inc., Canoga Park, machined components Sandy's Electronic Supply Inc., Canoga Park, electronics supplier Schroeder Tool and Die Corp., Van Nuys, machined components Spec Engineering Co. Inc., Van Nuys, machined components T.N. Tyler Precision Machining, Canoga Park, machined components Titan Spring Inc., North Hollywood, spring supplier TTI TTI Texas Transportation Institute TTI Thoracic Trauma Index TTI Transmission Time Interval TTI Travel Time Index TTI Travel Technology Initiative TTI Technology Transfer Initiative TTI Traffic and Traveller Information TTI Technology Transfer Institute Inc., Mission Hills, electronics distributor W.W. Grainger Inc., Van Nuys, tool supplier Welco Electronics, Burbank, electronic components SOURCE: Boeing Co. CAPTION(S): 3 photos, 5 boxes, drawing Photo: (1) Robert Abelson, an engineering support manager at Boeing, monitors construction work being done on the space station. (2) Boeing's staff and space station subcontractors watch ongoing construction work from the company facility in Chatsworth. (3) From left, Al Mooney and his son, Brian, Moody Industries' production manager, show parts made for the space station. Evan Yee/Staff Photographer Box: (1) no caption (International Space Station) (2) STATION STATS (3) VALLEY CONNECTION (4) HARD HATS IN SPACE (5) LOCAL FIRMS IN ORBIT (See text) Drawing: (color) no caption (International Space Station, space suit) Graphics: Jon Gerung/Staff Artist |
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