LONGMONT, Colo.—The sky’s the limit for how much ABSL Space Products could grow in Longmont.
Since consolidating multiple Boulder-area locations into one 11,000-square-foot facility, the company has nearly tripled its employee base and recently started shipping the first of its products made in Colorado out the door.
ABSL Space Products is one of four companies operating under the umbrella of ABSL Power Solutions, an England-based company whose products use lithium-ion technology.
ABSL Space Products builds lithium-ion battery packs for a variety of uses in outer space. While it formerly had only a sales and marketing presence in the U.S., its Longmont facility has begun making the company’s products, which should help it land more contracts from U.S. companies, according to Chris Pearson, vice president of ABSL Space Products.
“We’ve gone from six people in April, when we moved in here, and we’re up to 17 now,” Pearson said, adding the company is still looking for a few people.
The first products that shipped out in February were 340-volt batteries built for Moog Inc. The batteries will be used to power a prototype system for a future launch vehicle demonstration.
In May, the company received a NASA contract to build battery packs for the next generation of space suits that will be worn by U.S. astronauts.
It is building 12 “engineering model cell bricks”—essentially models of the packs that will go into space. Before they’re shipped, every aspect of the bricks is meticulously tested and documented extensively. Once the bricks pass NASA’s strict design-review processes, ABSL will build 35 more for the agency. Those will go into space.
The contract to build the astronauts’ Extravehicular Mobility Unit battery was worth about $2 million, Pearson said. The company has been working on it since May and has about another 18 months to go.
But it’s the potential to land more NASA contracts—or contracts from Boeing, Lockheed Martin and others—that has Pearson excited about his company’s prospects.
“This is where we’re building up the business now,” he said.
ABSL buys lithium-ion batteries from other manufacturers and uses its design capabilities and technology to package them for customers.
Each battery is extensively tested before it makes it into any ABSL product, Pearson said—not only for their reliability, but for their specific characteristics.
“Your spacecraft battery … is very different from what you’d use in a launch vehicle,” Pearson said, explaining that for a spacecraft, batteries must have longevity, while the batteries in a launch craft need different characteristics. “It’s not energy now; it’s power.”
As the contracts come in, the company will continue to evaluate whether its current space is large enough, he said. But the office park where ABSL is located, Circle Capital’s The Campus at Longmont, has plenty of room for the company to grow.
Because ABSL was able to design its Longmont facility, the work flow is more efficient than it is at the company’s original manufacturing facility in the U.K., and that saves money.
John Cody, president and CEO of the Longmont Area Economic Council, said aerospace is one of the LAEC’s target industries, along with biotech and software, among others. The fact that a company such as ABSL would choose to move here to grow shows Longmont can compete with any place when it comes to the labor pool and cost of doing business, he said.
“It’s also reflective of the fact that aerospace continues to grow as an industry in our state,” Cody said, adding that Colorado surpassed Texas last year to become No. 2—behind California—in terms of overall employment in the aerospace industry.
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