On Monday, 3rd of March, Falcon 9 launched Transporter-10, SpaceX’s 10th dedicated smallsat rideshare program mission, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. On board this flight were 53 spacecrafts, including cubesats, microsats, and other hosted payloads. Four of these spacecraft were designed, built, and will be operated by a company in the aerospace sector – a client of the Connova Group for about 3 years now. Watching the launch in the video stream one could witness the successful deployment of these four satellites into orbit and achieving nominal mode for all four satellites after just 4 hours.
Therefore, Connova Group’s project team for space was full of anticipation and excitement, too, when waiting for the launch to come. We have not only supplied the aluminum panels for the primary structure of the satellites; for one of the satellites, we have developed and built the CFRP telescope structure made of ultra-high modulus (UHM) carbon fibers. The telescope structure consists of two main sub-assemblies, the baffle and the bench, an ultra-stiff sandwich plate where the baffle is attached on.
Based on our long-lasting space heritage and engineering competency in spacecraft design of composite structures we could help our client in the aerospace sector to achieve their ambitious plans. As the launch date was fixed many months before, we had to supply two units of the telescope structure in record-breaking short delivery time of nine months only between project kick-off and delivery – including detailed design, manufacturing engineering, material procurement, production, 3D measurement and final delivery. The close collaboration between Connova Group and the aerospace company has started since the early days of the satellite production with the ground testing model, the so-called STM.
*Image source cover picture: Screenshot from the Video ‘Blastoff! SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Transporter-10 rideshare mission – Full Broadcast]’ from [VideoFromSpace] from YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk9wiPpQcR4).”
