Salt Lake City: Livability in the 21st Century

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Technicians complete the center backbone of NASA’s James Webb Space
Telescope at ATK’s Salt Lake County facility. Measuring approximately
24 feet tall by 19.5 feet wide by more than 11 feet deep when fully deployed,
and weighing only 2,180 pounds, the highly engineered structure is designed
to support the telescope’s beryllium mirrors, instruments and other elements.
It is also designed to hold the 18-segment, 21-foot-diameter primary mirror
nearly motionless while the telescope is peering into deep space..
Selected as the upper-stage motor for our nation’s newest
medium-class launch vehicle, Antares, ATK’s CASTOR 30
rocket motor helped launch a demonstration mission to the
International Space Station September 18, 2013. This flight
served as the gate for Orbital Sciences to begin regular cargo
resupply missions to the orbiting laboratory through NASA’s
Commercial Resupply Services contract. Stratolaunch is
the newest system to employ ATK’s innovative propulsion
technology. Founded in 2011 by entrepreneur Paul G. Allen,
Stratolaunch Systems is developing an air-launch system that
will revolutionize space transportation by providing orbital
access to space at lower costs, with greater safety and more
flexibility. ATK signed on with Orbital Sciences in 2013 to
provide first and second stage propulsion for the Air Launch
Vehicle. The contract includes the design, development and
flight hardware for initial Stratolaunch missions.
ATK’s supporting role to Department of Defense strategic
deterrence efforts is well established and continues through
support of both U.S. Air Force Minuteman III and U.S. Navy
Trident II D-5 missile systems, and missile defense systems
including interceptors and targets.
Within the space components industry, ATK is a leading
designer and producer of composite bus structures, towers
and subsystems that house flight-critical systems for
commercial, civil and military satellites. Programs include
numerous components for the A2100, Global Positioning
System, 702 and Star 2 buses, as well as components for
proprietary customers. These essential satellite components
feature high strength-to-weight ratios, superior flatness and
thermal dimensional stability—factors that are critical in
space applications.
Missions featuring Utah-produced optical support structures
include critical components for the Chandra X-ray
Observatory, Mars Exploration Rovers, and NASA’s Deep
Impact mission, to name a few.
For Hubble’s successor, NASA’s James Webb Space
Telescope, ATK partnered with Northrop Grumman
Corporation to provide key support structures housing
the telescope’s primary instruments and mirrors. These
structures are required to operate flawlessly at temperatures
as cold as -406 degrees Fahrenheit. The most powerful
space telescope ever built, the Webb Telescope will observe
the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of
the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around
distant stars.
For the composite aerospace structures market, ATK’s
industry leadership in high-strength, lightweight composite
materials makes it the partner of choice to develop and
fabricate technically complex components for military and
commercial aircraft. Housed in state-of-the-art production
facilities in Clearfield (just north of Salt Lake City), ATKpatented
technologies that feature signature automation are
used to manufacture advanced, lightweight aircraft structures.
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