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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Chatsworth Company Honored by NASA

Representatives from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena recently bestowed Chatsworth-based machine shop, UDASH Inc., with an award of excellence for the company’s participation in NASA’s robotic space programs. JPL acknowledged UDASH for the machine parts it produced for NASA’s Mars project. NASA/JPL also commended UDASH on its overall performance and claimed that it provided “excellent and expedited service required to meet the demanding schedule necessary to achieve the Rover’s launch date.” George Melamed, the CEO of UDASH, took great pride in receiving the award, one of only 50 given out across the United States. In particular, Melamed was pleased that a small, 10-employee family business could be honored by such a massive organization as NASA. “As a small struggling machine shop, that has been working in this business for more than 20 years, we were surprised at first but very honored to receive this award from NASA/JPL for all the long hours that we put into manufacturing these parts for the Mars Rover,” Melamed said. Due to UDASH’s small size, the company was forced to work day shifts, night shifts and weekends to complete the parts on time. Currently, the company is continuing to manufacturing various aircraft hinges and other space flight related machine parts for NASA, as well as various spare aircraft parts for the United States government. Despite the adversities facing all local manufacturers, particularly ones that do all of their manufacturing in-house, UDASH has plans to expand within the next year. “We are looking to expand our manufacturing capabilities within the next year by specializing in the production of military hinges and continuing to produce complex machined aircraft components,” Melamed said. “It is not going to be an easy task, but we are a hard working group of dedicated people and we have a positive outlook.”

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