Betatronix, LLC of Hauppauge, NY is very excited to have NASA and Jet Propulsion Labs scheduled to visit our facility this coming Thursday, May 8, 2008 to congratulate our employees and our company for our contribution to the spectacular success of the MARS EXPLORATION ROVER Program.

Betatronix celebrated after reading about the amazing performance of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover which landed on the surface of Mars in 2004 and has been performing perfectly since that time. The two MERs (Mars Exploration Rovers) were only supposed to work for less than a year but they have been operable for 4 years now and have earned the reputation as one of NASA’s most phenomenally successful programs.

Both MERs, named Spirit and Opportunity, had dozens of custom-designed precision feedback devices known as potentiometers assembled on the vehicle. All these potentiometers were designed, built and tested by the staff at Betatronix.

Betatronix has been in business for over 40 years, and has been building potentiometers specifically for use in outer space applications since the mid-1970’s when we manufactured precision potentiometers for Rockwell International for use on the Space Shuttle. Today, we build precision potentiometers for the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, communication satellites, space cameras, space robots and planetary vehicles. These potentiometers demonstrate the ultimate in reliability and performance and have distinguished Betatronix as the leader in “space-qualified” potentiometers worldwide.

Although Betatronix is a relatively small company employing 75 people, our customers include every major satellite and actuator manufacturer in the US today and most of the major European space companies, including Boeing Satellite Systems, Space Systems Loral, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman TRW, Raytheon Systems, Honeywell, Astrium, Mitsubishi, JPL NASA, Moog, Starsys Research, INTA, and Microtecnica.

In 2003, Betatronix was awarded a contract to design and manufacture almost 100 custom precision potentiometers of various designs for use on the MER 2003 (Mars Exploration Rover) program for Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA. Betatronix worked on a Design of Experiment with JPL and NASA and the tests and experiments were directed toward noise-free operation at low temperature and hard vacuum. Preliminary tests of the potentiometers at –200oC in hard vacuum demonstrated noise free operation, and these potentiometers were then used on the Mars Rover Vehicle. Betatronix successfully completed shipping this contract on time. Betatronix potentiometers are used to provide position feedback for the steering, antennae, cameras, robotic arm and other critical applications on the Rovers.

NASA will visit Betatronix on Thursday 5/8/08 to recognize and congratulate our employees for the part we played in the MER program and a large, panoramic picture of the Mars surface will be presented to Betatronix.