Rocket Lab is exhibiting that is about extra than simply rockets.
The California-based firm has launched a household of customizable photo voltaic arrays, designed to suit the altering wants of buyer satellites. Rocket Lab is providing the brand new Standardized Array, or STARRAY, line as a substitute for save first- or one-time satellite tv for pc producers the time of designing and testing their very own photo voltaic arrays from floor, up.
The road was launched earlier this month, on the fortieth Area Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “Prospects can select from a spread of pre-engineered photo voltaic array configurations to satisfy the wants of their utility whereas leveraging the flight-proven reliability, efficiency and pace of Rocket Lab’s vertically built-in manufacturing,” Rocket Lab’s Vice President of Area Techniques Brad Clevenger mentioned in an announcement.
The STARRAY line affords seven variable photo voltaic array sizes, ranging in energy output from 100 watts to over 2,000 watts. “Our goal is to supply the business mission-specific customization with brief lead instances and decrease prices,” Clevenger mentioned within the assertion.
In 2022, Rocket Lab acquired house solar energy applied sciences firm SolAero, to increase its house programs capabilities. The deal added photo voltaic cells to Rocket Lab’s in-house processes. Now, the corporate boasts a vertically built-in photo voltaic array manufacturing system, permitting it to streamline manufacturing of photo voltaic cells and assemblies and photo voltaic panel subsystems to completely realized photo voltaic arrays.
Increasing their house business experience additional, Rocket Lab was additionally lately chosen as a possible associate for the navy’s multibillion-dollar packages devoted to constructing hypersonic know-how. And the corporate’s HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Take a look at Electron) rocket is scheduled to launch the DART AE mission for the U.S. Protection Innovation Unit’s Hypersonic and Excessive-Cadence Airborne Testing program.