by Rolan C.
I was only a blip in
Lockheed Martin's recent history when COMSAT was acquired by Lockheed Martin
around 2000, then was sold a few years later. I was a contractor with Lockheed
Martin after having worked at COMSAT for 18 years in the tube area and the battery
lab area. Circa 2002, one of the battery tests included testing some Hubble
cells from NASA. I put them in a liquid nitrogen-cooled shroud in a vacuum
chamber. I ran a couple of months of charge and discharge tests, stored,
plotted and presented the data. I didn't know it at the time but those tests
were the foundation for NASA deciding to postpone replacing Hubble's batteries.
The Hubble batteries were later replaced in 2009.
