Kerr Panel Manufacturing’s support of Orion has been featured by the office of small business programs. The publication, NASA Deep Space Human Exploration Spacecraft Orion: A Case for Small Business, highlights small businesses throughout the country that have been integral to mission success.
Kerr Panel Manufacturing’s sales engineer team worked closely with NASA & Lockheed Martin to help design and manufacture the integral aluminum honeycomb panel system in the photos shown. Kerr Panel Manufacturing prides itself on its commitment of “quality to the core”; a dedication which is evident in the aluminum honeycomb panels manufactured for NASA, Lockheed Martin, & the Orion program, and they look forward to a continuing relationship as mankind gets ever closer to reaching Mars with Orion.
In addition to helping Lockheed Martin design these panels using finite element analysis, Kerr Panel Manufacturing also performed tensile testing on the final aluminum honeycomb panels. These panels, manufactured in Henderson, Colorado at Kerr Panel Manufacturing’s 12,000 sq. ft. facility and cut on an in house 10′ x 20′ CNC router are only some of many aluminum honeycomb panels that have been and will be used for this program. The mock spacecraft is going to allow engineers and designers to test the systems in real world situations and test modifications before applying them on the final spacecraft.
NASA Deep Space Human Exploration Spacecraft Orion: A Case for Small Business shows in detail the success stories of small businesses all over the country, including Kerr Panel Manufacturing, that have helped to support Lockheed Martin & NASA throughout the Orion project.
The accompanying photograph is a look into the test lab created by Lockheed Martin and NASA using Kerr Panel Manufacturing’s aluminum honeycomb panel technology. Kerr Panel Manufacturing’s aluminum honeycomb panels are shown as the floor.