Benham Supports Moon Test

By Ja’Rena Lunsford, The Oklahoman

Oct. 17–Oklahoma City’s Benham Cos. is working with NASA to help get astronauts back to the moon.

The firm said Tuesday it has been awarded a $51.4 million contract from NASA to build two testing facilities at NASA’s Space Power Facility in Sandusky, Ohio.

The architectural and engineering firm already has begun construction on the facilities, which will support the development of the Orion spacecraft. NASA hopes the Orion will carry astronauts to the international space station and the moon in the next decade.

“It’s exciting to be part of the challenge of putting men back on the moon,” said Bill Steen, Benham project director for the contract.

When will it be complete? Steen said the projects will be completed in 18 months, and Benham will provide NASA with an additional six months of technical support.

Katherine Martin, spokeswoman for NASA’s Glenn Research Center, said Benham’s two testing chambers will be in two existing buildings. One of the test chambers will be 67,400 cubic feet and will be able to generate 163 decibels of sound power. The Orion spacecraft will sit inside the chamber during testing.

Benham also will design and construct a mechanical vibration platform to test the spacecraft for physical vibration capabilities.

How many are involved? Steen said 35 Benham employees will work on the contract this year and 25 will work on it next year.

“There are some additional people being hired in both Oklahoma City and Ohio,” Steen said. He didn’t know exactly how many people would be hired for each location.

Benham is a subsidiary of SAIC, Science Applications International Corp. SAIC is no stranger to NASA contracts, but Steen said this is Benham’s first with the space organization and executives at the Oklahoma firm are excited about the challenge.

“We look forward to leading the design-build effort to deliver one of the world’s largest, high-intensity acoustic test chambers and the world’s largest and most powerful spacecraft vibration test system for NASA and the Orion program,” Steen said.

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