Telecommunications boom sending satellite business higher.

There aren't many companies flying higher than Hi-Shear Technologies Corp. this month.

Now the question is whether the Torrance-based aerospace firm can sustain its orbit or end up falling back to Earth like one of the satellites it helps propel into space.

The American Stock Exchange issue saw its stock nearly triple in value since a positive April 11 earnings and dividend announcement, though it had pulled back somewhat last week as shareholders indulged in some profit taking.

The stock hit a 52-week high of $10.26 on April 26 and closed at $9.33 on April 27.

The company makes separation systems that allow a rocket payload to separate from a launch vehicle and be put into orbit. And after a long slow down in the satellite industry, the company posted net income of $715,000 for the third quarter ended Feb. 28, about four times higher than a year earlier. Revenues were up 84 percent to $3.4 million. It also announced a cash dividend of $1.5 million, or 22.4 cents a share, for shareholders of record as of April 21.

While the quarterly figures were impressive, they also were consistent with strong earnings and revenue growth over the past year--far from the stagnant sales and declining profits that plagued the company over the prior three years amid a slowdown in the international satellite market.

But that has been changing, especially for bit players such as Hi-Shear as both the U.S. military, and now a booming telecommunications industry, are putting up growing numbers of smaller, cheaper satellites.

"The smaller companies are jumping at the opportunity to grab these $100 million contracts that the larger companies don't go after, and it's starting to help them gain experience and revenue," said Marco Caceres, a senior space analyst for Fairfax, Va.-based Teal Group Corp.

Hi-Shear, like other aerospace firms in the niche, work with big players such as Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Co., which build the rockets that propel the rockets into space. But with clients putting multiple payloads on one rocket, that hasn't necessarily translated into more business for the big firms.

However, one rocket with multiple payloads does in fact mean more business for Hi-Shear, whose explosive separation systems are required for each payload.

"We're coming out of a stagnant period that has lasted over the past four or five years," said Bert Timmerman, Hi-Shear's director of application engineering. "From military satellites to private-sector projects the entire industry is coming back around and more players are getting involved, meaning more satellites are going up and we're happy to see that."

The company is now projecting revenue upwards of $17 million this year. Among the contracts awarded to the company were a recent satellite that DirecTV Group Inc. is scheduled to launch. Another is for a group of extremely high frequency satellites the U.S. Air Force will launch starting in 2008.

Hi-Shear also has diversified into other areas. Among some other projects, Timmerman said, was one with the U.S. Navy using sound waves to detect and detonate mines. Another involves developing equipment that protects against misfires involving the Army's PATRIOT missile system and the Israeli military's equivalent.

As a result, Hi-Shear is projecting that it will generate $21 million in revenue in 2007, a good bump up from this year.

"We saw the business slowing so we looked to diversify our projects to protect us," he said. "We're also realizing payoffs from those investments now as well."