Airbus has been selected by leading technology and services provider MDA Space to supply solar arrays for MDA AURORA™, the software-defined satellite product line enabling constellations to extend communication networks to every corner of the world. This new initiative will provide operators with unparalleled flexibility and functionality, dramatically enhancing constellation performance at reduced cost and time to market.
The company will supply more than 200 Sparkwing solar arrays that will be built on a designated line at Airbus’ high-capacity production facility in the Netherlands. The solar array is the largest Sparkwing to date, consisting of two wings with five panels each and providing a photovoltaic area of over 30 sqm.
Sparkwing is the world’s first commercially available, off-the-shelf solar array for small satellites. It was originally optimised for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions that require power levels between 100W and 2000W. It offers customers a choice of more than thirty different panel dimensions, configurable into deployable wings with one, two or three panels per wing, with single actuation need (due to only one hold-down per wing).
Its application range has grown to cover also higher power demands and more and larger panels per wing for missions to LEO and beyond. Next to power generation, the solar array product provides a high stiffness, minimal integration effort (made for integration by the customer) and benign demands on the spacecraft sidewall tolerances.
The MDA AURORA™ supply chain will help support product deliveries for anchor customer Telesat’s LEO satellite constellation Lightspeed, an innovative, advanced global network that will bring enterprise-class connectivity to customers worldwide.
Designed to meet the changing technical and business requirements of the satellite industry, the MDA AURORA™ software-defined satellite product line provides operators with unparalleled flexibility and functionality, dramatically enhancing constellation performance at reduced cost and time to market.
“We are delighted to be selected as the supplier of solar arrays to partner with MDA Space for Telesat Lightspeed,” says Rob Postma, Managing Director of Airbus in the Netherlands. “Our industrialised Sparkwing solar array product not only meets the demands of this ground-breaking constellation project, but is also tailored to ensure optimal performance in space. The Sparkwing solar arrays are designed for series production, ideally suited for constellations, and we will accordingly contribute to a project enabling space connectivity.”
To learn more about Airbus’ work with MDA Space, visit Sparkwing Space
Source: Airbus
