162:. Swales did some manufacturing of aerospace-related products, specializing in structural and thermal management systems—ways to control movement and heat in satellites. Facilities were located in Virginia, Florida, Texas, California, and Maryland, home of the Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA accounted for about 75 percent of business. The U.S. Department of Defense was another key customer. The company participated in programs such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station and had begun producing its own small satellites before being acquired by Alliant Techsystems in 2007.
209:(FUSE). FUSE sought to probe wavelengths that had not yet been observed in a quest to help understand the origins of the universe. Jim Pontius, lead structural engineer, pioneered many advancements in low-temperature composites and bonds to facilitate the mission. According to Space Business News, Swales was transferring technology from the FUSE project to the Naval EarthMap Observer (NEMO)
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Daily Press), it was not too large to compete as a small business, which conveyed certain advantages in the bidding process. In 2002, Swales took over the lead contractor position in a $ 225 million, five-year contract to provide NASA Langley with
Systems Analysis and Mission Support (SAMS), displacing previous agreements held by giant Lockheed Martin and Federal Data Corp.
174:, on April 17, 1978. Company founder Tom Swales was the first president and CEO. Future CEO Tom Wilson was director of business development. Both Swales and Wilson had structural analysis engineering backgrounds. Ron Luzier, originally senior vice-president and chief engineer, and later chief technology officer, joined Swales and Wilson in founding the company.
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Aavid
Thermalloy, LLC joined Swales in an alliance to commercialize advanced electronic cooling systems that Swales had developed in thermal management work for government satellite programs. Aavid, the world leader in thermal management for electronics, brought high-volume manufacturing capacity and
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Among the company's high-tech projects was computer simulation work for a powerful hypersonic aircraft engine. Swales was also a partner on a Boeing-led team contracted by NASA to develop nuclear electric power systems deep space exploration. These used electric thrusters powered by nuclear reactors.
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was an employee-owned, small business aerospace engineering firm. The company offered a full range of aerospace engineering services. It was the global leader in the development and manufacture of two-phase thermal solutions for spaceflight applications, and it was a small satellite mission provider.
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Swales opened an office near
Houston's Johnson Space Center in early 2002. The company's Beltsville, Maryland site was expanded later in the year with the addition of a 34,000-square-foot office and production facility, bringing its total space there to more than 220,000 square feet. Revenues were $
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NASA was farming out more of its engineering work in order to reduce its staffing levels, noted the Daily Press of
Newport News, Virginia. Swales was one of the three largest contractors for NASA's Langley, Virginia facility. Still, with about 900 employees (125 of them at Langley, according to the
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In
October 2001 Swales acquired most of the assets of Dynatherm, a Hunt Valley, Maryland developer of thermal management systems, from Pressure Systems Inc. of California, which had bought the company three years earlier. Around the same time as the Dynatherm purchase, Swales opened an office in El
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Sales were $ 90 million in 2000. The company had never had an annual loss, Wilson told the
Washington Post, because it kept to its engineering niche. Employment hovered at around 800 people. In November of that year, Swales wrested a five-year, $ 240 million NASA contract from its much larger local
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Swales seemed likely to benefit from
President George W. Bush's proposal to put an American on Mars. One relevant technology being tested was a low-energy dry drilling instrument designed to probe for water under the Martian surface. In a 2002 field test, the device drilled ten meters into Arizona
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Swales set out on an acquisition drive in 1995. Around the same time, it ventured from pure engineering to manufacturing satellite hardware and tools for astronauts, such as a popular power wrench. Revenues exceeded $ 75 million in 1997. Swales then had 700 employees and was growing quickly. Among
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Swales was named the primary mission assurance director for the U.S. Department of
Defense's Missile Defense Agency in September 2004. Swales was supported by a team including Millennium Engineering and Integration Company and subcontractors SRS Technologies and Vanguard Research Inc. The Missile
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Swales was reorganized into four business units effective
January 2005. Civil Services included engineering support for NASA customers such as Goddard Space Flight Center, Langley Research Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Johnson Space Center. Commercial Programs and Engineering
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Welch
Engineering Ltd. of Pasadena, California, was acquired in December 1998. Welch strengthened Swales's control systems offerings, Tom Wilson told the Washington Business Journal. The Pasadena location was convenient to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Welch also had an office in Rockville,
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rival Federal Data Corp. (later acquired by Northrop Grumman). This contract related to NASA's Langley Research Center. It was soon followed up with a $ 350 million deal supporting the Goddard Space Flight Center for five years. In both cases, Swales led a team of subcontractors.
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An important new product was the SCONCE secondary carrier. It allowed small payloads to share a launch with larger ones. SCONCE successfully launched an experimental micro-satellite from an Air Force rocket in May 2003. Its cost savings suggested commercial potential.
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The company continued to support the Hubble Space Telescope by participating in repair missions. Swales designed more efficient solar arrays for the Hubble and developed a cooling system for the Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS).
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NASA accounted for most of the company's revenues. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, updating aging defense satellites became a national priority. Defense-related work was soon accounting for about 10 percent of revenues.
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global marketing connections to the partnership. Wilson told the Washington Post that as computer chips became faster and hotter, they could benefit from the heat pipes the company had developed to regulate the temperatures of satellite components.
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A team led by Swales was awarded the rights to commercialize NASA's Small Explorer-Lite (SMEX-Lite) spacecraft technology in 1999. AlliedSignal Technical Services Corp. and Hammers Co. were partners in the venture. Swales was prime contractor on
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Segundo, California, to be more accessible to the commercial aerospace industry near Los Angeles. The company also had a new engineering center on Merritt Island, Florida, near Cape Canaveral and the John F. Kennedy Space Center.
289:, scheduled for launch in October 2006. THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions During Substorms) was designed to track disturbances in the Earth's magnetosphere using five satellites.
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221:(EO1), a small satellite launched in November 2000. Swales was also one of three companies NASA chose in 2000 to develop lightweight spacecraft, new conductivity materials, and other technologies.
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Swales & Associates, Inc., doing business as Swales Aerospace, was an aerospace engineering firm based in Maryland. It was employee-owned through an
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sandstone without requiring repairs or a bit change. After slipping $ 4 million to $ 140 million in 2002, revenues rose to $ 157 million in 2003.
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other projects, the company was manufacturing components for the International Space Station's thermal control system.
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National Security Programs and Engineering Services.
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207:Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
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193:Acquisition drive beginning in 1995
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202:Maryland, and about 40 employees.
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348:ATK to Acquire Swales Aerospace
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118:In 2007, it was acquired by
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338:. Retrieved on 2012-07-30.
326:. Retrieved on 2012-07-30.
170:Swales was established in
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363:Alliant Techsystems Inc.
131:1978: Swales is formed.
242:157 million for 2002.
183:Hubble Space Telescope
225:Big contracts in 2000
580:Beltsville, Maryland
406:ATK Defense Products
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93:Beltsville, Maryland
575:Alliant Techsystems
535:Theodore von Kármán
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58:Tom Swales
438:XM25 CDTE
126:Key dates
79:Successor
37:Aerospace
74:Acquired
33:Industry
499:Pegasus
484:ALV X-1
479:Orbital
469:Thiokol
103:Website
63:Defunct
55:Founder
47:Founded
41:Defense
504:Cygnus
494:Castor
287:THEMIS
413:AARGM
160:ESOP
71:Fate
66:2007
39:and
489:GEM
443:PGK
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