REDMOND, Wash. — A Redmond-based company could help NASA scientists unlock the secrets of the solar system and how life on Earth began — so small stakes stuff.
The company was instrumental in helping NASA bring a sample from an asteroid back to Earth, and work done here could pave the way for a future where humans travel to the asteroid belt, visit asteroids, work and mine the asteroid belt. It sounds like sci-fi but It’s not.“A tremendous sense of pride and accomplishment — all of the contributions from the folks here in Redmond who were able to make that happen,” said Cahill.
“The mission as a whole was extremely ambitious …we built the thrusters for the entire Osiris Rex mission…the very, very fine and delicate maneuvering around the asteroid to keep it in orbit,” said Cahill, who is a program manager at Aerojet Rocketdyne. For AR and its 450 employees, the company had to create an engine that could make a soft landing, and that effort proves it can be done. Cahill had to admit that returning a scientific sample back to Earth proves that we could see equipment and people making soft landings on asteroids in the future.