From Apollo 8 to Today - 50 years of central NY technology in space

50 years of Space Age technology Apollo 8 to Orion

Apollo VIII was the first crewed mission powered by the Saturn V rocket - with avionics by IBM Owego and Huntsville labs - and phase separation actuators from Simmonds Precision in Norwich, NY. GAF’s Anscochrome film was part of the astronauts’ tools to photograph the the first views of the far side of the moon by humans.

In the 1970s, IBM Owego developed the 4PI computers for NASA’s Space Shuttles that flew from 1981 - 2011.

Today, Lockheed Martin Owego supports NASA’s Orion spacecraft - being built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before. Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.