Honeybee Robotics focuses on engineering for aerospace

LONGMONT – Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corp., a New York-based specialist subcontractor for the aerospace industry, including NASA’s Mars missions, recently opened an office in Longmont.

Erik Mumm, vice president, director of flight systems and leader of the new unit, said it focuses on engineering and program management for “things that move on a spacecraft”- or, more formally, robotics for flight systems. The local group’s capabilities include systems engineering and mechanical design as well as electrical and electronics design.

Vickie Lee, representing the Colorado Space Coalition, an economic development organization, applauded Honeybee’s decision to set up shop in Longmont.

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“The state has a wealth of companies working in both civilian and military aspects of aerospace,” she said. “Having a robotics company here is particularly exciting because of the importance of this technology in deep space exploration.”

The Coalition says Colorado is the nation’s third-largest aerospace economy, with more than 400 companies and suppliers active in the state.

Honeybee first established a presence in Colorado about three years ago when it hired Ron Hayes, who declined to leave the Front Range for the Big Apple. Now chief engineering officer, Hayes is among the company’s three employees in Longmont. There are currently openings for a senior mechanical engineer as well as an electrical engineer cross-trained in electrical design.

Mumm, who recently moved to Colorado from Honeybee’s corporate office, said, “We like it here and we’re committed to working with the aerospace community on the Front Range. We see great possibilities for growth.”

Mumm anticipates deepening the company’s relationships with the University of Colorado-Boulder and the Colorado School of Mines.

Founded in 1983, Honeybee won the first of its more than 100 NASA contracts in 1986. It now works with nine of NASA’s 11 centers and has supplied components for three Mars missions.

The Longmont team recently delivered two key components of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, a mission to determine the habitability of the red planet. For the new rover, Curiosity, Honeybee designed and produced a robotic carousel to receive, store and deliver samples for analysis. A NASA statement noted as a key difference between Curiosity and its predecessors the fact that the new rover “carries equipment to gather samples of rocks and soil, process them and distribute them to onboard test chambers inside analytical instruments.”

The other Mars Laboratory component derives from Honeybee’s Rock Abrasion Tool, designed and developed for the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers. It removes the dust layer to allow subsurface sampling. The original version of the tool was the first to penetrate rocks on planets other than Earth.

The Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled to launch in late 2011 and arrive on Mars in August 2012. The mission will last one Mars year or 23 Earth months.

Honeybee’s Longmont location offers the company ready access to its Colorado customers, which include Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. in Littleton.

Lockheed Martin is NASA’s prime contractor for Orion, a deep space exploration craft. Honeybee developed a component that will deploy Orion’s solar arrays.

In Longmont, Hayes led engineering work on the electromechanical device, which enables the solar arrays to transmit power to the craft while tracking the sun. “You can’t just run wires to them,” he noted, “because they’re continually rotating.” A more mundane version of this technology transmits power to the lights on Ferris wheels, Hayes said.

Orion’s first flight test is scheduled in 2013.

In addition to the flight systems group, Honeybee has a division focused on exploration technology, including drilling, excavation and geotechnical systems. The company’s staff also includes experts in optical sensors.

Honeybee conducts research and development projects for the U.S. Department of Defense and private industry. Its commercial expertise encompasses geotechnical and geochemical science as well as development of electromechanical systems for hostile environments. Industrial customers include international mining group Rio Tinto, power provider Consolidated Edison Inc., IBM Corp. and Siemens AG.

Mumm said the company’s name pays tribute to the productivity of the honeybee and reflects the organization’s focus on product development. Privately held, Honeybee has 40 employees and expects revenue in the range of $8.5 million to $9 million this year.

“We’ve been in the black for the last six or seven years,´ said Ellen McDermott, director of finance and administration. “We’ve been investing in growth by opening new offices.” In addition to the Longmont office, Honeybee recently opened its doors in Pasadena, Calif., near the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, home of the Mars Science Laboratory mission.