RBC Bearings’ VACCO Industries: History & Countercyclical Expansion into Space

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Yes, I understand.

In space, especially for longer missions, you can't replace a valve like you can with a Space Shuttle that returns to Earth. If you're leaking fuel over a year in a 10-year mission, you're done, like filling up a new car and running out of gas after 300 miles. That's the key difference. We had a niche market for long-term operations. Almost all the JPL filters for their space probes came from VACCO. I wanted to enhance that line because many shorter missions didn't require such expensive filters.

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How much was the filter?

Basically, we bought three companies whose business was next to nothing in terms of revenue, but they had a richness of designs and IP that was already well known in the market. My thought was, when everybody's getting out of the business, that's the time to get in. I knew the space program was going to come back. It had to come back. We would lose our edge in space, and they were not going to allow that to happen. They had to reset. The space shuttle was over, and they were trying to figure out what the next vehicle was. As soon as the next vehicle was ready, they had to come back to us because we had all the experience.

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How is the revenue profile for OEMs, for example, in each platform? I want to understand how much revenue is generated upfront for a submarine.

This applies to both the submarine and space areas. Let's start with space. In space, there are no spares or repairs because once you launch something, it's done, except for vehicles that return, like the Shuttle. Every time it returned, they had to repair or replace many valves. They were designed to last 10 years or 100 missions. Some lasted more than 10 years because if you build a valve for 10 years, it might last 20. You can't pinpoint it exactly. They had many issues, especially with valves leaking, and it was a complex system.

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