STILLWATER, Okla. — Frontier Electronic Systems - or Frontier for short - is based in Stillwater with about 150 employees, many of whom hail from Green Country, as well as OU and OSU.
Frontier designs and builds resistor network assemblies and helps produce the Boeing Starliner capsule's batteries, including the one on board the rocket set to carry astronauts to the International Space Station the night of May 6, after years of Boeing delaying.
"We start from a bare board and build the battery components, solder on all the parts that support the battery and the battery controller, and then we solder on the individual battery cells into a series of sub-cores that we then send to Boeing where they assemble to final top-level battery," Program Manager Darryl Smith explained to 2 News.
This, as Inspection Manager Michelle Stansell said, ensures the capsule powers in the right directions and keeps life support systems stable.
Frontier's products have already worked on other launches, but the crewed test flight to the ISS is its first manned mission.
"We can't have something go into outer space and not function like it's supposed to," Stansell said. "So there's the extra hands-on. There's the extra inspections. A lot of care is taken into this. It is very crucial that we do our job right."
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Native Tulsan Miguel Ramos helps assemble the electronic systems. He's also a Memorial High School Alumnus. He and Stansell hope their work inspires more bright minds from northeast Oklahoma to bring america - and the world - to the future of space travel.
"It's kind of surreal at first, right? And then you see it go up in the sky and yeah, just kind of makes it all worth it in the end," Ramos said.
"It's a different dimension, I think," Stansell added. "When it comes to military defense and things that are going into outer space it's a whole different level. It's not your regular toaster."
The company is celebrating with a watch party Monday night. Frontier personnel said they hope this will be a first of many success stories in blasting astronauts into outer space and, eventually, the moon and Mars.
Click here for the live stream of the Starliner launch.
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