General Atomics’ Purchases Of SmallSat Firms To Be Fruitful
Pentagon contractor General Atomics purchased about two tiny satellite manufacturing firms over the period of last 3 Years. The motive of this move was to get the achievement in the prospering SmallSat market. Executives are exhibiting recent NASA and Air Force contract wins as evidence that the acquirements are paying off.
In 2016, General Atomics, from San Diego, California, purchased Miltec, which is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2017, it acquired the U.S. subordinate of UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, Englewood, Colorado. Employing the proficiency from those two firms, it launched a satellite bus dubbed Orbital Test Bed. The specialty of this bus is it has a supple design, which allows it to compete to host various kinds of payloads. Nick Bucci, Vice President, Missile Defense And Space Systems, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, proclaimed that everybody is trying to get their arms around the notion of hosted payloads to know how to utilize it in a best possible way.
On a similar note, General Atomics came into the news as it disclosed the development of a new process for the thermoplastic composite structures fabrication. Reportedly, this will prevent the need for conventional tooling or molds. The system is estimated to have applications in space, aerospace, marine, and wind energy markets. Although it has not been officially named, the tool-less process employs two 6-axis robots functioning in cooperation to place thermoplastic tape into free space within a metallic or alike frame, which offers the boundaries to the structure being fabricated.
Composite Automation LLC, employing Mikrosam tools, worked with GE-ASI to expand the automation. One robot comprises a regular unidirectional tape placement system, which offers laser heating. This helps in performing in-situ consolidation of the thermoplastic material. The subsequent “support” robot functions directly contradictory to the automated tape layer. It has a flat metallic surface.
