The C-Flex Bearing Co. develops parts for products ranging from food processors to NASA satellites.

And recently, frictionless bearings produced at the company’s 104 Industrial Drive location were used on NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite, which launched Dec. 14 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The satellite is expected to conduct the most detailed survey ever of the entire sky in infrared light – picking up objects such as dark asteroids, failed stars and galaxies, according to NASA’s Web site.

“It’s a very technical thing and a very high requirement,” C-Flex Bearing Co. co-owner and Vice President Wayne Smith said of making products for NASA. “We have to be very careful how we manufacture them. They go through a lot of ground checks before they go into space.”

The company, which opened in 1993, doesn’t rely on just aerospace work, Smith said. It has more than 400 customers – including in the areas of food processing and the oil industry, he said.

Because of that, the business really wasn’t impacted by the economy in the past year, he said.

There are nine employees at the company, and that could increase in the coming years, Smith said.

New flexible couplings being developed to join two shafts together will have more general use than the bearings and require more production, he said. These products are expected to double or triple business and result in more employees being hired, he said.

Along the way, one of the company’s secrets to success has been keeping the production process secret, Smith said.

“People have tried before and failed to duplicate our process and products,” he said. “We’re very successful at what we do because we’re good at what we do.”

Copyright 2010 The Observer-Dispatch. Some rights reserved

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