The expanding satellite market will be supported by two new complementary products from Sierra Space, a premier commercial space-tech business that is Building a Platform in Space to Benefit Life on Earth. In order to create cost-effective solar array-management systems at shorter lead times, Sierra Space has combined recent advancements in technological components with its more than 35 years of spaceflight experience to create a new Solar Array Drive Assembly (SADA) with multiple options and a new commercial variant of its heritage Universal Microstepping Control Driver (UMCD).
The satellite industry will gain from these new product offers since they will lower the cost and accelerate the availability of solar array technologies for growing high-volume applications. The announcement coincides with the August 3–8 Small Satellite Conference, which will be held in the USU Fieldhouse and Taggart Student Centre on the Utah State University campus in Logan, Utah.
“Our goal is to develop a Low Earth Orbit economy, and part of that effort is developing affordable commercial products that are delivered with shorter lead times,” stated Rusty Thomas, Chief Technology Officer and SVP & General Manager of Sierra Space’s Space Applications Sector. “The sector must develop at a rate that allows for unrestricted growth if it is to create a strong Low Earth Orbit economy. The much-needed high-volume growth will be supported by these new solar array products.
In order to optimize power generation, spacecraft can align their solar panels with the sun with the use of the new SADA and UMCD versions. The UMCD receives and processes input signals from the flight computer, processes them to produce the power signals that the SADA mechanism uses to physically aim the solar array.
