Business & Tech
NASA Officials Visit Yardney To See Battery For New Space Craft
The EG-based company produces batteries used by NASA, including four to ship Friday that will be used in Orion, the next generation craft to carry people into space.
East Greenwich may be an unlikely place for a factory producing batteries that go into space, but that's exactly what Yardney Technical Products on South County Trail does.
Yardney makes high-performance lithium-ion batteries and moved into one of the buildings formerly used by ON Semi-conductor two years ago, relocating from Stonington, Conn.
On Wednesday, it had a few special visitors – several NASA officials, the Providence Journal reported.
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The NASA officials were there as part of the team working on the Orion spacecraft, the agency's next edition of a craft to carry people into space.
Yardney’s batteries have powered American military aircraft and NASA spacecraft for decades — dating to the moon mission era, the Projo reports.
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They are being used on the Mars mission right now.
On Friday, Yardney will ship four batteries — each about the size of a case of beer and weighing 104.4 pounds — to the Kennedy Space Center for installation and testing on the Orion.
Orion’s first space flight test is planned for September 2014, Casper said. The first manned mission is expected to take place after 2021.
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