Parts Maker for Space Lab Pleads Guilty : Falsified Documents on Bolt Safety Tests

A San Fernando Valley parts manufacturer has pleaded guilty to charges that he falsified documents to show that nuts and bolts installed in a space laboratory had passed required safety tests.

Arthur O. Sammons, 76, of Canoga Park entered the plea last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to 43 counts of fraud and making false statements to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He faces a maximum sentence of 215 years in prison and a $7.8-million fine. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 5.

Workers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida have been taking apart the space laboratory--dubbed Astro I--since late summer. The agency is spending about $1 million to replace all bolts supplied by Sammons. NASA says Astro I--which is scheduled to be launched from a space shuttle in March, 1990--won’t be reassembled at least until February.

“He has cost taxpayers a bunch of money,” said Wiley Bunn, director of quality assurance at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Sammons refused to comment. “You have all of the information you are going to get,” he said. Federal investigators say Sammons’ company--A. O. Sammons--is a one-man firm that operates out of a condominium garage.

NASA has said the bolts conceivably could have posed a safety problem for astronauts. The bolts hold together major components of Astro I, which hangs out the shuttle’s cargo bay. The agency does not know the precise number of potentially risky bolts that had been placed inside Astro I.

Federal agencies including the Defense Department, NASA, Navy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have launched a nationwide effort to crack down on suppliers of alleged counterfeit and substandard parts that have been found in the shuttle, commercial and military jets, and nuclear plants and missiles. Sammons’ indictment resulted from this effort.