On Friday September 21, 2012 Space Shuttle Endeavour made its final landing at Los Angeles International Airport. The shuttle had crisscrossed the skies of California on the back of a Boeing 747 in its final aerial show. The 78 ton Endeavour will soon be making its way down the boulevards of Inglewood and Los Angeles to its new home at the California Science Center. Endeavour last flew into space on May 16, 2011. It first flew in 1992 and logged nearly 123 million miles in 25 flights over 19 years.

Acrymax is proud to have been part of the Space Shuttle program. Acrymax coatings flew on their first mission on November 19, 1997 when Columbia was launched. Several years earlier we had been approached by ATK the manufacturer of the solid fuel booster rockets. They were looking for a more user and environmentally friendly alternative to a solvent based coating they had been using. After exhaustive testing an Acrymax waterborne elastomeric coating was chosen to protect parts of the Shuttle’s solid fuel rocket booster (SRB) assembly. By reusing flight hardware including the shuttle vehicles and the rocket boosters NASA was able to contain costs for the shuttle program.

The first shuttle flight was in April 1981. Thirty years later on July 8, 2011 the last shuttle mission was launched. Total cost of the 30 year space shuttle program was estimated at $209 billion in 2010 dollars. We continue to supply high performance coatings to the aerospace industry, but we will always be especially proud of our participation in the Shuttle program.