Defining the State-of-the-Art

 MMA High-strain Composite Boom Technologies

When it comes to high-strain composite boom technologies, we know one thing for sure: there is no one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why at MMA we have developed a wide range of boom architectures, materials, and deployment mechanisms that can be leveraged to meet your requirements while balancing performance and cost. 

Various high-strain composites manufactured at MMA.

In-house Expertise

MMA’s talented team of design, materials, and manufacturing experts handle layup design, analysis, manufacturing, and testing of our composites. We consider factors such as thermal stability, space environmental survivability, RF transparency, mass, stowed volume, and cost to deliver superior performance tailored for your mission. 

MMA team in the high-strain composites manufacturing lab.

Technology Edge

MMA has also invested in the exclusive licensing of NASA’s patented SHEARLESS boom technology and has leveraged this technology to develop MMA SHEARLIPS* composite booms (patent pending) with improved bending stiffness, torsional stiffness, and structural stability. Additionally, MMA has obtained an exclusive license to NASA’s patented Bistable Collapsable Tubular Mast (Bi-CTM) technology to provide closed cross-section boom performance with minimal stowed volume. These offerings complement our heritage tape and slit-tube designs that have significant flight heritage and deployment reliability. 

Solutions + Systems

Tape truss boom prototype deployed.

Our Tape Truss Boom incorporates high-strain composite tape longerons, tensioned diagonals, and battens forming a tailorable solution for maximum stiffness and strength. These booms are often used as a major structural element in our deployed architectures and can be combined with our other deployers and booms to provide the ultimate system-level performance in the least stowed volume.

We are experts at combining cutting-edge technologies into cutting-edge systems that are challenging and redefining the state-of-the-art in deployable systems design.

*SHEAthed Rollable LIP Shaped (SHEARLIPS) boom.