Boeing prepares for radar lab launch

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- If engineers from the Boeing Co. give the go ahead, a

radar laboratory will be launched into space Monday.

Plans call for the lab to spend 11 days floating beyond the clouds,

collecting a trillion pieces of data to create “the most detailed

topographical map ever of the Earth,” said Alan D. Buis, a spokesman for

the aerospace giant.

During the lab’s launch and mission, there will be someone constantly

monitoring its progress from the company’s Huntington Beach facility,

which recently opened the world’s newest, largest and most sophisticated

private space-flight center.

The $3-million Engineering and Mission Support Room, unveiled in October,

helps ensure the safety and success of space flights using either the

company’s Delta rockets or space shuttles, product manager Mark M. Muhar

said.

The room is set up with 70 workstations hooked up to computer consoles

that check everything from a launch vehicle’s engines to instrumentation

and hydraulics, Muhar said. At the front of the room stands three

6-foot-tall monitors that display up-to-the-minute data on operations, he

said. If something isn’t working properly, the technicians can alert

their counterparts at NASA to scrub a launch, he said.

The mission support room is only a small part of the company’s sprawling

200-plus-acre campus at the corner of Bolsa Chica Street and Bolsa

Avenue. Along with office buildings, there are laboratories, some still

under construction, that help design upgrades and modifications to the

rockets and shuttles, Muhar said. Cryogenics facilities work on super

cold rocket fuels, Buis said. Large buildings that look like airplane

hangers test the durability of materials in space.

Although most of the company’s manufacturing and assembly occurs

elsewhere, a five-story “clean room” was used last year to assemble a

part of the future International Space Station. Boeing is building the

“backbone” of the station, which, upon completion around 2005, will

extend the length of a football field, officials said. It will be the

first permanently inhabited space laboratory, they said. Pieces of the

station are sent into space with the help of the shuttles, for which

Boeing is the largest subcontractor, Buis said.

Ever since Boeing began shutting down its facility in Downey, thousands

of employees have relocated to Huntington Beach. Since last year, the

ranks of employees here have swelled from about 6,000 to 10,000, making

Boeing the city’s largest employer, Buis said.

The company celebrated its successful consolidation by throwing an

outdoor party at its facility this week.

City officials rave about Boeing’s rising presence. Many of the company’s

highly educated employees will buy homes and shop in the city, which will

boost the local economy, City Councilwoman Pam Julien said.

“It’s an A+ for Huntington Beach,” she said.

The city’s image also enjoys a boost because Boeing represents high-tech,

City Councilwoman Shirley Dettloff said.

“This is an industry that looks to the future,” she said. “We’re on the

cutting edge.”

The state-of-the-art science Boeing is working on also has practical

applications. One of the anticipated results of Monday’s space lab

mission is that companies will find the best places to drill for oil and

gas, Buis said.

But there is a shroud of mystery over some of the work done there. While

some projects are classified, Buis insists nothing is “top secret.”

“If there is, I don’t know about it,” he joked. “I don’t have a need to

know.”