Area Firm Landed Mars Contract

Along with millions of other Americans, two local engineers focused their eyes on a fuzzy computer screen last Friday afternoon and watched with disappointment as the minutes ticked by and NASA’s Web site failed to display any pictures from Mars’ south pole.

Now, three days later, they continue to tune in for the crucial windows, hoping with each hour that a signal will finally get through.

But these guys have much more at stake than most Martian enthusiasts. They designed and constructed some of the parts that make the Mars Polar Lander function.

And now they are feeling a profound sense of loss as the reality sinks in that the lander may never be located.

Doug Petercsak and Jim Sprunck, both from Fillmore, built the small motors that turn the head of the camera on the three-legged spacecraft, which was supposed to touch down on Mars after a 470-million-mile voyage. Their company, American Technology Consortium, also built the devices to control a large arm that would collect dirt and ice from Mars’ surface.

Although the lack of a signal has nothing to do with the parts they designed, they feel as discouraged as anyone who worked on the project.

“It’s frustrating to put in so much effort, like all of us have, because you just want to have it pay off,” Sprunck said.

“We have no idea what happened to it,” Petercsak said. “It could have landed and flipped over because it landed on a cliff or hill or it could have landed safely and then there is something wrong with the antenna. Or it could have slammed into the ground.”

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But failure is part of the business of space exploration, Petercsak said, and over time he has learned to deal with setbacks.

The two men teamed up about six years ago when they were working at Teleflex Control Systems, a manufacturing-driven company that makes aircraft actuators, and decided they could make more money and have more control over their product if they worked for themselves.

Armed with engineering degrees, and no clients, the two 30-year-olds headed out on their own.

Their first contract fortuitously fell into their lap through a NASA contractor. “The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was already in an emergency, and they just said to us, ‘When can you have that done?’--and didn’t ask any of the hard questions about how much experience we had,” Petercsak said.

Greg Gillis-Smith, a project manager at JPL at the time, was the person who gave ATC the contract. He said he found himself in a serious bind and called Petercsak, who had been recommended to him.

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“I met Doug on Friday at 4 p.m. and said I needed the contract for the gear in a week,” Gillis-Smith said. “The people at JPL laughed at me because you never get anything done in a week. But by the following Friday at 4 p.m. I had a contract for $153,000. They sure made me look good.”

And the gears the two produced, said Gillis-Smith, worked better than expected. “They were flawless,” he said.

Gillis-Smith ended up going to work for ATC more than a year ago because he wanted to work at a small, up-and-coming firm. “I was tired of getting so tied down in the paperwork, and here I can move quickly on any- and everything.”

Currently, the company’s gross revenue is $2.5 million and has been doubling each year.

About half of the Oxnard company’s contracts come from NASA--it designed similar camera motors for a previous launch to Mars. And the other half is design work in the private sector, making such things as gear boxes, clutches, brakes and motors.

“If this doesn’t come through, it won’t be good for the space industry, but we haven’t gotten any feedback to change work on [upcoming NASA projects],” Petercsak said. “But it’s too soon to tell. We won’t know that for at least three or four months.”

Either way, he said, American Technology Consortium has plenty to keep it busy and in business.

“The commercial part won’t change because people still want their cell phones and satellite TVs,” Petercsak said.

The company, which has eight employees, was paid about $400,000 for the series of small motors on this Mars mission. The motors on the camera, which are cylindrical and weigh less than a pound, function a lot like the stem of a remote camera by swiveling the lens to take pictures from different angles.

For another NASA mission scheduled in 2001, the company has a $1.5-million contract to build motors that will help deploy a system of mirrors and cameras to take pictures of the Martian terrain from a distance.

Although many companies could make motors for earthbound objects, there are challenges aplenty when the parts have to function in space.

“First of all, the environment is negative-100 degrees Celsius, and the object has to be very lightweight,” said Petercsak. “Every ounce you send to Mars costs a lot of money.”

He also noted that nonfunctioning VCRs or alarm clocks can be given a good shake or a swift slap to make them work, which is not an option so many miles from human contact.

To be help ensure success, ATC’s warehouse on Rice Avenue has machines, such as a thermal vacuum cleaner and liquid nitrogen chambers, which simulate outer space. Sprunck said there are only six companies in the country that do the same kind of work.

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The partners usually have about five projects going at any one time. They try to keep their bases covered by being involved with projects outside of NASA. “We don’t want all our eggs in one basket,” said Sprunck.

But they both count their blessings for getting the chance to work for an institution with such lofty aims.

“It is a dream come true for engineers who grew up tinkering,” said Sprunck. “We get to make mechanisms that are flying to Mars. It’s always in the back of your mind that this could benefit society.”

But only if the probe lands and a signal is received. For that, Petercsak and Sprunck will just have to wait and see.