ELKTON - If everything goes as planned, Mike Lara's name, along with the signatures of a couple dozen other Harford and Cecil County residents, will be landing softly on Mars early next year.
Lara, who lives in Elkton, is director of business development at ATK Elkton LLC, a rocket motor manufacturing plant on U.S. 40, just a few miles outside this Cecil County town.
Workers at the plant - which not long ago was slated to close - produced key parts for the two Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft that are scheduled to be launched next month and in June.
"One of the things we did here," Lara said, "was to make the gas generators that will inflate large airbags - similar to those used in cars - that will cushion the rovers' landing on the surface of Mars."
"The airbags were made by ILC Dover Corp. in Dover, Del., and they let a large number of us sign our names on the bags" before they were shipped to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, he said.
Lara explained that the plant here also made small rockets designed to slow the spacecraft as they near the Mars surface. Other small rockets will be used to keep the spacecraft on course as they encounter the strong winds on Mars during their descent to the surface.
The twin 300-pound, six-wheeled robot rovers, each a little smaller than a golf cart, are to explore the surface for interesting rocks and the possibility of water.
Early into their 310 million-mile odyssey, the spacecraft will depend on another ATK Elkton rocket to accomplish their mission.
A STAR 48 rocket will serve as the third stage of the Boeing Delta II launch vehicle. It will provide the kick needed for the spacecraft to break away from Earth's gravitation and begin their flight to Mars.
"It's one of our biggest motors," Lara said of the 48-inch-diameter, 80-inch-long, 4,720-pound rocket that will serve as the third stage for the Boeing Delta II launch vehicle.
ATK Elkton workers who will be cheering the flights of the two spacecraft as they race to the surface of Mars are currently celebrating the 55-year-old factory's new lease on life.
"This facility was slated to close," Lara said.
The threat developed when Alliant Techsystems, a large Edina, Minn.-based aerospace company, acquired the former Thiokol Corp. plant here in April 2001.
According to Lara, the plan was to close operation here and shift all production to ATK Tactical Systems Co., an ATK unit in Rocket Center, W.Va., across the Potomac River from Cumberland.
