An electrical firm which has produced wiring for NASA’s premier telescope, will be revealing how businesses can take advantage of the space market at a major conference next month.
Cryoconnect, a division of Tekdata Interconnections, has been supplying cabling solutions for the space industry for 12 years and recently won the contract to provide wiring harnesses for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will be located 1.5million km from Earth.
The complex harnessing for the JWST, which is a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, has been designed to withstand extremely low temperatures as it orbits Earth and the massive launch force it faces when it blasts off in 2018.
Terry McManus, JWST project manager of the Staffordshire-based firm, will be giving advice for businesses, including looking at marketing strategy and the pitfalls to avoid when bidding for lucrative contracts, when he speaks at Spacetech on February 9th – a conference about new developments and opportunities in the space industry.
Spacetech, organised by the County Durham Development Company, the business arm of Durham County Council, will be held at NETPark (the North East Technology Park) at Sedgefield, in County Durham, in the North East.
McManus said, “Working in the space industry really isn’t rocket science. You don’t have to be extremely clever or high tech to supply it, you just need to be intelligent enough to understand what the requirements are and be able to deliver them.
“Businesses shouldn’t be afraid of the unknown because there are so many opportunities. At the end of the day, all we do at Tekdata is take wiring and put connectors on the end and that’s it. It’s taking basic skills and developing them for what the market needs.”
Stewart Watkins, managing director of CDDC, added, “Businesses may think that they don’t have the high tech products that the space industry is looking for but the opportunities are so wide, with traditional skills such as welding and electronics being in demand.
“Spacetech will provide an invaluable opportunity for businesses to learn from leaders such as Cryoconnect who are experienced in working in the space market and can share their knowledge.”
