Enabling your mission
Interested in learning more about how our pointing systems can enable your mission?
Connect with our product specialistsCritical systems for accurate and stable pointing of spacecrafts and instruments.
Solar Array Drive Assembly (gimbal)
The CubeSat Solar Array Drive Assembly (SADA) can facilitate higher average orbital power and enable peak power tracking for MMA’s suite of CubeSat solar arrays. It features +/-180-degrees of actuation, up to 16 signal/power feed-through conductors per wing, and actuation speeds up to 0.188 revolutions per minute. The two variants — 6.5mm thick and 9mm thick — accommodate 3U, 6U, and even 12U CubeSat form factors.
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- 1U x 2U, 60W
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- 1U x 1U, 60W
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- 1U x 1U, 120W
These gimbals are only available on MMA Solar Arrays.
- 1U X 1U: supports up to 60W
- 1U X 1U: supports up to 120W
- 1U X 2U: supports up to 60W
- 1U x 2U: supports up to 120W
Deployable Tape Truss Boom
The deployable truss boom is a bolt-on system with integral launch restraint and controlled deployment capability. Powered by our unique Tape Deployer Assembly (pictured below), it features expansion ratios up to 100:1 and stow volumes down to a 1U form factor. Because this boom is a periodic trussed structure, custom-length booms can be realized by simply adding or removing bays. The scalable system can be used individually or as a building block to enable mission-critical systems such as antennas, solar arrays, tip-mounted instruments, and areal membranes.
Stand-off Mechanism
The Stand-Off Mechanism (SOM) is a deployable structure with space flight heritage. It provides payload clearance for applications where a fixed bracket is not feasible. The SOM uses a Frangibolt assembly for release and deploys to a height of approximately 8 inches using energy stored in folded tape springs. The typical payload is MMA’s dragNET De-Orbit Module; however, the SOM can be scaled for use with other payloads.
SOM shown supporting the dragNET De-orbit System.
Spine Antenna Pointing Mechanism
The Spine Antenna Pointing Mechanism, or “Spine APM”, uses a stack of pivoting vertebrae elements forming a spine. The cross-section has a hole in the center, similar to the spinal cord in the backbone, where a flexible RF coaxial cable or wave guide is routed. The curvature of the spine assembly is shallow and repeatable, thus minimizing the blend radius of the RF coaxial cable or wave guide. This approach eliminates complex rotary joins and their associated RF losses, and multiple units can be ganged together to form an antenna array.
