MMA Design Capabilities

Design, manufacturing and testing of Moving Mechanical Assemblies for space and launch vehicles, MMA provides mechanical systems designed for high reliability, robustness, predictable performance, and high efficiency.

MMA’s deployable systems, including solar arrays, structures, and antennas, define the state-of-the-art for packaging efficiency by delivering the most on-orbit watts, length, or diameter per stowed kilogram or cubic meter. This antenna fits into a 1U package.

Highly skilled, trained, and certified technicians follow detailed processes and documentation, and work closely with engineering to ensure that each solution is consistently assembled and correctly tested.

MMA analyzes, designs, and manufactures high-strain composites, solid laminates, sandwich panels, struts and trusses. Tailorable properties include stiffness, strength, bi-stability, compaction, CTE, and RF-transparency because we know that when it comes to high-strain composites, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. 

MMA expertise and capabilities include structural, dynamic, and thermal analysis using NASTRAN, ABAQUS, and Thermal Desktop. We also do deorbit analysis using General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT), and offer RF analysis using CST and TICRA GRASP and QUPES.

Knowledge and experience in materials for space applications enables efficient, elegant solutions. Analysis and testing ensure that our materials and processes stand up to the extreme temperatures, radiation, atomic oxygen, ultra-violet exposure, and micrometeoroids / orbital debris that your mission will experience with high performance, reliability and durability.

MMA’s SADAs, peak power trackers, and deployable systems are accomplished with in-house design and testing of electronics and programming. Assembly and testing is done with flight heritage processes and compliance to industry quality standards. We also offer robust, fault-tolerant, flight-proven firmware and user-friendly GSE software.

Additive manufacturing, using in-house systems or approved suppliers, reduces cost and risk by accelerating testing of complex parts and systems.

MMA has developed in-house research and development capabilities of composite structures, materials, and processes. We design, manufacture, and test our flight hardware using in-house as well as locally-sourced production facilities.

MMA has strong capabilities and experience in a broad range of test disciplines: structural strength and stiffness, gravity-offload deployments, environmental testing (vacuum, thermal, vibration), and RF range.

In-house machining and inspection capabilities support the rapid delivery of high precision components and rapid response for repairs or modifications, which enables MMA to manage quality, program schedules and cost risk through vertical integration.

Passion, knowledge, and experience from a broad range of disciplines come together at MMA in a supportive environment emphasizing communication, trust, and excellence — with a healthy dose of fun.

Our high-strain composite boom technologies enable just about every deployable MMA solution. Proprietary composite layups as well as technologies we have licensed exclusively from NASA to use and further develop support the deployment of our membranes and structures in novel ways.

MMA’s Tape Deployer Assemblies, or TDAs, are a building block of our booms, some antenna architectures, solar arrays and other deployables. These are mechanical drive units for storage and deployment of slit tube tapes for large membranes and truss boom deployment systems. Our TDAs have been flight proven on a P-DaHGR antenna with the R3D2 mission.

Our membranes are our competitive advantage. Using these in a variety of architectures and for many applications enable high-compaction stowage requirements for our large deployables and light weight structures.

Constant Torque hinge deployment mechanism with rate control and position sensor for large, rigid, multi-panel deployment systems, such as Solar Arrays.

Provides motor driver and controls for Tape Deployer Assemblies and other motorized mechanisms.

Used for fine angle adjustment in large panel deployment systems.

Provide hardware in the loop testing capabilities for early program checkout / simulations.