Cobham to Produce Actuators for Mars Rover; Bill Brown Comments

Cobham has been awarded contracts worth $20.5 million to supply actuators to NASA for the Mars rover program intended to explore the red planet.

The actuators will work to drive the rover wheels, allow steering, antenna motion, and deploy the remote sensing mast of the rover, Cobham said Wednesday.

“After a 350,000,000 mile journey to Mars and three years of completing daily tasks, our actuators met the challenges of the grueling Martian atmosphere, including -120oC temperatures and a volatile dust environment,” said Bill Brown, vice president of Cobham motion control.

“Our range of low, medium and high torque designs are used in almost every motion-related activity on the Curiosity rover,” added Brown.

Cobham’s integrated electronic solutions, a business unit of Cobham advanced electronic solutions sector, will build the actuators at the company’s Hauppauge, New York-based facility.