Frankfort corporation a part of NASA trip to Mars
By
Dave Dellecese
Story Created:
Aug 9, 2007 at 12:48 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Aug 9, 2007 at 12:48 PM EDT
FRANKFORT - A piece of the Village of Frankfort is on the planet Mars today, helping NASA with its soil samplings.
The CTM Corporation in Frankfort is an engineering machine shop that has grown since it first opened for business. The latest example of that, is their work they did for NASA, making a part for the Mars exploration rover spirit.
The Mars exploration rover, Spirit, is a robot currently on Mars digging up and testing soil samples.
The CTM Corporation in Frankfort made the actual scooping device that is picking up those samples.
The device is made out of titanium and will allow for the robot to not only scrape the surface of mars, but scoop the soil samples for testing. They received the contract with NASA by showing off their products at trade shows around the country.
All the parts they made took them 4 months of man hours at 40 hours a week to produce.
“We do a defensive show in Orlando every year where we do quite a bit of optics for the government,” said John Piseck of the CTM Corporation. “So, by doing these different shows it allows for them to see what we can do. Today with internet, FedEx and UPS, you can do things allover the country and it doesn't matter.”
The small company of just 23 employees doesn't really talk about money related to the project, but they did say the project as whole, the part NASA paid for was $420 million.
The only bad news out of the whole project is that CTM could not put their name on the actually part they made...but they will let that slide with future projects lined for NASA.
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