Atec, Inc. specializes in the design, manufacture, construction and maintenance of precision components, large fabrications, systems and facilities. Atec provides solutions for low to medium volume requirements involving engine test, aero support equipment, spaceflight components, and energy service products. Over 20,000 Atec products have been used by the

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...

and others, including the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

. Atec was named

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

Small Business Subcontractor of the Year for 2016, in recognition of contributions to NASA and

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...

Manned Spaceflight Programs.

History

Atec was founded in 1953 as Accurate Instrument Co. and was officially incorporated in the state of

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

on July 13, 1956. Accurate Instrument Co. primarily manufactured instrumentation for the

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot a ...

industry. Some notable products included a standard day instrument (used to provide automated correlations to

standard sea level Standard sea-level conditions (SSL), also known as sea-level standard (SLS), defines a set of atmospheric conditions for physical calculations. The term "standard sea level" is used to indicate that values of properties are to be taken to be the sam ...

atmospheric conditions),

signal generator A signal generator is one of a class of electronic devices that generates electrical signals with set properties of amplitude, frequency, and wave shape. These generated signals are used as a stimulus for electronic measurements, typically used i ...

frequency counter A frequency counter is an electronic instrument, or component of one, that is used for measuring frequency. Frequency counters usually measure the number of cycles of oscillation, or pulses per second in a periodic electronic signal. Such an instr ...

s, oscillators, and pressure test sets. In the 1960s, Accurate Instrument Co. was renamed Atec, Inc., in concert with a shift from custom instrumentation to aerospace and energy equipment, such as hush houses, jet engine test stands, spaceflight components, control systems, exploration surface equipment and wireline tools. Atec operates to ISO 9001, AS 9100D and ISO 14001 standards. Since its founding, Atec has made many notable acquisitions, including Lymco Electronics in 1976 (oil patch systems), Kestran in 1989 (energy service manufacturing), Celtech in 2013 (aeroengine test stands) with Space Corp. (aero support gear), Hager Machine & Tool in 2016 (energy & general machining), and Vital Link in 2017 (aerospace & industrial enclosures and fabrication). Locations in Oklahoma City, Singapore, Dubai and Istanbul also service international customers.

Notable spaceflight programs

*RL10 cryogenic flow control valves Atec has manufactured, assembled, and tested cryogenic flow control valves for the RL10 liquid-fueled rocket engine since 1995. The RL10 is currently used on the Centaur upper stage on both the

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, ...

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Mart ...

and

Delta IV Delta IV is a group of five expendable launch systems in the Delta rocket family introduced in the early 2000s. Originally designed by Boeing's Defense, Space and Security division for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, t ...

launch vehicles, and is planned for use on the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle. Northrop Grumman has recently indicated plans to utilize the RL10 on their

Omega Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/ isopsephy ( gematria), it has a value of 800. The ...

rocket. As of December 2017, Atec-manufactured valves have flown on 140 consecutive successful flights. Notable RL10 missions which launched with Atec-manufactured valves include NASA’s New Horizons probe to

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...

, the LCROSS Lunar Impactor, and the Orion

Exploration Flight Test 1 Exploration Flight Test-1 or EFT-1 (previously known as Orion Flight Test 1 or OFT-1) was the first test flight of the crew module portion of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. Without a crew, it was launched on December 5, 2014, at 12:05 ...

. *International Space Station and Crew Capsule components In 2013, Atec began work on 27 lithium-ion battery adapter plates to be used on the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

. The

electrical system of the International Space Station The electrical system of the International Space Station is a critical resource for the International Space Station (ISS) because it allows the crew to live comfortably, to safely operate the station, and to perform scientific experiments. The ...

previously used 48 nickel–hydrogen (Ni–H2) batteries, which are being replaced with 24 lithium-ion batteries, built by

Aerojet Rocketdyne Aerojet Rocketdyne is an American manufacturer of rocket, hypersonic, and electric propulsive systems for space, defense, civil and commercial applications. Headquartered in Sacramento, California, the company is owned by Aerojet Rocketdyne Hold ...

. Six adapter plates were launched on HTV-6 in December, 2016. These adapter plates were installed by

Peggy Whitson Peggy Annette Whitson (born February 9, 1960) is an American biochemistry researcher, retired NASA astronaut, and former NASA Chief Astronaut. Whitson has a total of 665 days in space, more than any other woman or American. Her first space mi ...

Shane Kimbrough Robert Shane Kimbrough (born June 4, 1967) is a retired United States Army officer and NASA astronaut. He was part of the first group of candidates selected for NASA astronaut training following the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster. Kimbrou ...

, and

Thomas Pesquet Thomas Gautier Pesquet (; born 27 February 1978 in Rouen) is a French aerospace engineer, pilot, and European Space Agency astronaut. Pesquet was selected by ESA as a candidate in May 2009, and he successfully completed his basic training in Nov ...

over the course of two spacewalks in 2017 as part of

Expedition 50 Expedition 50 was the 50th expedition to the International Space Station. Robert S. Kimbrough, Andrei Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov transferred from Expedition 49. Expedition 50 began upon the departure of Soyuz MS-01 on October 28, 2016 and ...

. Atec, from a 2015 contract, began designing and manufacturing an electrical polarity and flow control unit for the next generation Crew Capsule, which will carry astronauts to the ISS and other manned-flight destinations. *Development and legacy liquid propulsion components Atec is a participant on several new development and heritage

rocket engine A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accorda ...

programs including the

AR1 The Aerojet Rocketdyne AR1 is a thrust RP-1/LOX oxidizer-rich staged combustion cycle rocket engine project. The engine was conceived in 2014, and received US government funding to build a prototype engine in 2016. By 2018, the USAF had com ...

and

RS-25 The Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25, also known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine that was used on NASA's Space Shuttle and is currently used on the Space Launch System (SLS). Designed and manufactu ...

engines.

Notable engine test and support programs

*Jet and turboprop engine test stand repair contract In 2013, the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

and

Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex The Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex (WR-ALC), through about 7,000 employees at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, provides depot maintenance, engineering support and software development to major weapon systems -15, C-5, C-130, C-17 and Special ...

awarded Atec a 5-year repair and support contract for A/M37T-20 & A/M37T-21 type test stands worldwide. Such test cells are in broad use for intermediate level test of F100, F101, F110, F119, F124, F125,

F135 The Pratt & Whitney F135 is an afterburning turbofan developed for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, a single-engine strike fighter. It has two variants; a Conventional Take-Off and Landing ( CTOL) variant used in the F-35A and F-35C, and a ...

, F404,

F414 The General Electric F414 is an American afterburning turbofan engine in the 22,000- pound (98 kN) thrust class produced by GE Aviation. The F414 originated from GE's widely used F404 turbofan, enlarged and improved for use in the Boeing F/A-1 ...

J79 The General Electric J79 is an axial-flow turbojet engine built for use in a variety of fighter and bomber aircraft and a supersonic cruise missile. The J79 was produced by General Electric Aircraft Engines in the United States, and under lice ...

, J85, TF30, TF33, TF34, TFE731, T38, T53, T56, 501D, AE2100, PT6, CT7, TPE331, PW100s, W-M601, MK532/6, AI-24T and other military aircraft turbine engines. Renewed in 2018 for 5 more years, this IDIQ contract includes 24/7 hotline support, procurement, shipment, and on-site repairs in support of the United States Air Force. *Small turbine engine test cells Atec has designed and manufactured many modular turbine test cells for APU,

turboshaft A turboshaft engine is a form of gas turbine that is optimized to produce shaftpower rather than jet thrust. In concept, turboshaft engines are very similar to turbojets, with additional turbine expansion to extract heat energy from the exhaust ...

, and

turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, an ...

engines. Notably, Atec designed and fielded 2 modular, regenerative turboshaft test cells for

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

. These test cells were developed for the M250 engine and were tailored to Rolls-Royce’s Indianapolis production facility. Typical turboshaft test cells often utilize a water brake or other type of

dynamometer A dynamometer or "dyno" for short, is a device for simultaneously measuring the torque and rotational speed ( RPM) of an engine, motor or other rotating prime mover so that its instantaneous power may be calculated, and usually displayed by ...

to place a load on the engine, absorbing (and wasting) the produced energy. The Atec test cells use 500 hp electric generators to convert the rotational energy of the turboshaft into electrical energy. This allows Rolls-Royce to power the engine facility and sell excess generated power back to the

Electric utility An electric utility is a company in the electric power industry (often a public utility) that engages in electricity generation and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. The electrical utility industry is a major pr ...

. Other electric regenerative system installations include those for Bell and Bristow. Atec, Celtech and Vital Link Europe are also very active in worldwide helicopter and APU test cells. *Large turbine engine test cells Atec has designed and constructed multiple large turbine engine test cells. One notable example was contracted by

Kalitta Air Kalitta Air is an American cargo airline headquartered at Willow Run Airport, Ypsilanti Township, Michigan. The company operates international scheduled and cargo charter services. Its call sign "Connie" is from its founder, Connie Kalitta. ...

. This 10-meter Tilt up concrete engine test cell is rated at 100,000 pounds of thrust and is sized for testing Pratt & Whitney JT9D, 1000G, 2000, 4000, V2500, and GP7000 series;

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

CF-6, CF-34, CFM-56, smaller GE-90, GEnx, LEAP, and CFM-56;

Rolls-Royce RB211 The Rolls-Royce RB211 is a British family of high-bypass turbofan engines made by Rolls-Royce. The engines are capable of generating of thrust. The RB211 engine was the first production three-spool engine, and turned Rolls-Royce from a sign ...

and smaller Trent engines. This test cell is 240 feet long by 33 feet wide. The inlet height is 45 feet, and the exhaust is expelled at a height of 56 feet. Recent large turbofan projects include a

data acquisition Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real-world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems, abbreviated by the acro ...

system in Zurich and an eight-meter test cell in Miami. *Noise suppressors / hush houses In 2011, Atec was awarded a contract for the relocation of multiple T-9 noise suppressor test cells from Aviano Air Base and

Cannon Air Force Base Cannon Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base, located approximately southwest of Clovis, New Mexico. It is under the jurisdiction of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). The host unit at Cannon is the 27th Special Operatio ...

Tinker Air Force Base Tinker Air Force Base is a major United States Air Force base, with tenant U.S. Navy and other Department of Defense missions, located in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, surrounded by Del City, Oklahoma City, and Midwest City. The base, origina ...

. This effort included design of engine test equipment to accommodate the

Pratt & Whitney F135 The Pratt & Whitney F135 is an afterburning turbofan developed for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, a single-engine strike fighter. It has two variants; a Conventional Take-Off and Landing ( CTOL) variant used in the F-35A and F-35C, and a ...

engine (used in the

Joint Strike Fighter Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is a development and acquisition program intended to replace a wide range of existing fighter, strike, and ground attack aircraft for the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands ...

Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather Stealth aircraft, stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both Air superiority fighter, air superiority and attack ...

) in these upgraded T-9 test cells. *Turbofan Phoenix test cell In 2016, Duncan Aviation selected Atec to design, manufacture and field a Phoenix Series Modular Turbofan Engine Test Cell rated for 20,000 lb. thrust class engines. This environmentally friendly test cell will be used primarily for MRO testing in response to Duncan Aviation's designation as a

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

TFE731 Heavy Maintenance Facility. Duncan Aviation and Atec jointly announced this program at the National Business Aviation Association Conference, 2016. The cell was completed in August 2018.

Subsidiaries

*Celtech Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Atec, based in

Carlsbad, New Mexico Carlsbad ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Eddy County, New Mexico, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 32,238. Carlsbad is centered at the intersection of U.S. Routes 62/180 and 285, and is the principal city ...

. Atec acquired Celtech from ASE Holdings September 1, 2013. Celtech was founded in 1976 and incorporated in 1991. Celtech is a supplier of A/M37T-20C, A/M37T-21D, FEDS (T-24/T-33) and other jet engine and turboprop test stands for the United States Air Force and Foreign Military Allies. Celtech acquired the assets of Space Corp. (founded in the 1930s in

Garland, Texas Garland is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is located northeast of Dallas and is a part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is located within Dallas County except for small portions located in Collin and Rockwall Counties. At the ...

) & Page Avjet and as a result, Atec now owns these assets and data. *Hager Machine & Tool, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Atec based in north

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

. Atec acquired Hager Machine & Tool on August 12, 2016. Hager was founded by Bill Hager in 1983 and is a renowned machine shop specializing in precision components for

Petroleum Industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The large ...

Hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counte ...

, Air Tool, and

Heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...

customers. Hager's machines and infrastructure have been modernized since 2016. *Vital Link, Inc., acquired in 2017, is a subsidiary based in Sealy, Texas. Vital Link is active the in manufacture, construction and sustainment of turbine engine test enclosures. The campus is 45 miles west of Houston, and provides over 100,000 square feet of buildings on 30 acres. This facility produces very large scale structures, buildings and weldments. Vital Link serves as the United States Air Force worldwide long-term IDIQ task contractor for hush houses. Founded in 1990 by Jim Sitko, Vital Link has a unit (Vital Link Europe) with offices in London, Dubai and Istanbul, which handles European and Asian projects and services.

Locations

Atec, Inc. * Stafford / SW Houston,

Fort Bend County Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded in 1837 and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River. The community developed around the fort in early days. Th ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

* Midwest City, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma,

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

Hennepin County Hennepin County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Its county seat is Minneapolis, the state's most populous city. The county is named in honor of the 17th-century explorer Father Louis Hennepin. The county extends from Minneapo ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

Celtech Corp. * Carlsbad, Eddy County,

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...

Hager Machine & Tool, Inc. *

, Harris County,

Vital Link, Inc. * Sealy,

Austin County Austin County is a rural, agricultural dominated county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 30,167. Its seat is Bellville. The county and region was settled primarily by German emigrants in the 1800s. Austin ...

* Camberley, Surrey,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

References

{{reflist, 30em Aerospace companies of the United States Defense companies of the United States