Interface Recognized as Contributor to Human Flight Success
As a premium force measurement solutions provider, Interface load cells, torque transducers, and specialty products are frequently used by leading manufacturers, engineers, product designers and testing labs to drive innovation and industry advancements. Our products are utilized for developments and improvements in aerospace and defense, automotive, medical, industrial automation and more.
One of these industries that Interface has played a significant role in for decades as a solutions provider is the space industry. This includes providing products and services for designing and building space technologies like robotics and launch systems, as well as sensors for testing space qualified components, structures, satellites, observation equipment, space vehicles and more.
In our case study detailing our work with NASA, it is evident that our solutions for rockets and structural testing have been used by those advancing space exploration for many years. In fact, aircraft, spacecraft, military, and defense companies such as Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Bombardier, Embraer, Gulfstream, Cessna and others have depended on Interface load cells for thrust, wing, static, fatigue testing and more. While structural test applications utilize many types of LowProfile™ load cells, Interface also provide a wide variety of load pins, load shackles, tension links, load washers, load button load cells and miniature tension and compression load cells for test, production, and control monitoring applications of vehicles and spacecraft.
We recently participated in the industry’s Space Tech Expo, demonstrating the products and services we provide to those that are designing and building spacecraft for sending people and cargo into orbit. We highlighted some of the solutions we detailed in these resources:
Interface and The Race to Space
Force Measurement for Space Travel
Commercial space has also been a hot topic in recent years with technology titans creating their own space program to launch civilians into space. These organizations include SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and more. Interface has been tasked with helping to provide force measurement solutions for many of these companies. In fact, Interface was recently recognized by Blue Origin for contributing to their first sub-orbital launch with humans on board, the 16th New Shepard flight (NS-16).
With NS-16, Blue Origin successfully launched humans aboard the New Shepard 4 rocket. Its crew consisted of Blue Origin and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, 82 year old Wally Funk, and 18 year old Oliver Daemen. From launch to touchdown the crew’s official mission time was 10 minutes 10 seconds. The crew spent a few minutes in weightlessness and reached an altitude of 107 km (351,210 feet), similar to the previous test flights.
Interface received a special certificate and historic patch from Blue Origin for our participation in the first human flight. Notably, Blue Origin recognized Interface with the following statement:
Performance excellence is fundamental to the success of both our companies. We extend our sincere gratitude to the employees of Interface for demonstrating their dedication to the high-performance standards necessary to meet customer expectations.
Our work in the space industry is of great importance to us because it requires the highest level of quality and accuracy possible. Interface prides itself on developing solutions to meet any need and our ability to contribute to this launch and many of the other NASA or commercial launches around the nation is a testament to these capabilities.
To learn more about our work in space, visit our aerospace solutions page.
Solutions highlighted at Space Tech Expo 2021
