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Contact UsInnovative R+D that Leads to the Commercialization of Revolutionary Technologies
Our Capabilities
Mechanical Systems Design
Design, manufacturing and testing of Moving Mechanical Assemblies for space and launch vehicles, MMA provides mechanical systems designed for high reliability, robustness, predictable performance, and high efficiency.
Packaging
MMA’s deployable systems, including solar arrays, structures, and antennas, define the state-of-the-art for packaging efficiency by delivering the most on-orbit watts, length, or diameter per stowed kilogram or cubic meter. This antenna fits into a 1U package.
Assembly + Integration
Highly skilled, trained, and certified technicians follow detailed processes and documentation, and work closely with engineering to ensure that each solution is consistently assembled and correctly tested.
Composites Design + Analysis
MMA analyzes, designs, and manufactures high-strain composites, solid laminates, sandwich panels, struts and trusses. Tailorable properties include stiffness, strength, bi-stability, compaction, CTE, and RF-transparency because we know that when it comes to high-strain composites, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
Finite Element + RF Analysis
MMA expertise and capabilities include structural, dynamic, and thermal analysis using NASTRAN, ABAQUS, and Thermal Desktop. We also do deorbit analysis using General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT), and offer RF analysis using CST and TICRA GRASP and QUPES.
Materials Science
Knowledge and experience in materials for space applications enables efficient, elegant solutions. Analysis and testing ensure that our materials and processes stand up to the extreme temperatures, radiation, atomic oxygen, ultra-violet exposure, and micrometeoroids / orbital debris that your mission will experience with high performance, reliability and durability.
Flight Electronics + Software
MMA’s SADAs, peak power trackers, and deployable systems are accomplished with in-house design and testing of electronics and programming. Assembly and testing is done with flight heritage processes and compliance to industry quality standards. We also offer robust, fault-tolerant, flight-proven firmware and user-friendly GSE software.
Rapid Prototyping
Additive manufacturing, using in-house systems or approved suppliers, reduces cost and risk by accelerating testing of complex parts and systems.
Composites Manufacturing
MMA has developed in-house research and development capabilities of composite structures, materials, and processes. We design, manufacture, and test our flight hardware using in-house as well as locally-sourced production facilities.
Testing
MMA has strong capabilities and experience in a broad range of test disciplines: structural strength and stiffness, gravity-offload deployments, environmental testing (vacuum, thermal, vibration), and RF range.
Integrated Machine Shop
In-house machining and inspection capabilities support the rapid delivery of high precision components and rapid response for repairs or modifications, which enables MMA to manage quality, program schedules and cost risk through vertical integration.
Talented, Collaborative Team
Passion, knowledge, and experience from a broad range of disciplines come together at MMA in a supportive environment emphasizing communication, trust, and excellence — with a healthy dose of fun.
Research + Development
Sustaining Our Creative Engine
MMA’s sustained investment in R&D leads our team to innovation, new product development, and improved processes, all of which contribute to minimizing risk, improving delivery schedules, delivering cost effectively, and staying on the bleeding edge of Next Space. By seeking new ideas, technologies, and approaches, MMA constantly brings novel and disruptive products, systems and solutions to market. We don’t do R+D just for the sake of R+D — our innovations lead to the commercialization of revolutionary systems that benefit all.
Developing at the Speed of Relevance
Our strong focus on R+D allows us to adapt and evolve to meet the challenges of a changing business environment. This includes technological advancements, shifts in customer preferences, and changes in regulatory requirements. Advancements discovered as a result of our R+D investment position MMA for long-term success. And, this forward-thinking approach helps ensure that we remain relevant and resilient in the face of our ever-evolving industry.
Exploring is in our DNA
MMA’s commitment to R+D gives us a competitive advantage. Our customers associate our disruptive systems with quality and reliability, and we have earned a reputation for being at the forefront of technology. We attract like-minded innovators as team members and collaborators who recognize that we will prioritize and support their creative endeavors. And, as a team, we know how to effectively conduct R+D so that it translates into tangible, commercial outcomes for our customers.
Our Toolbox
High-strain Composite Booms
Our high-strain composite boom technologies enable just about every deployable MMA solution. Proprietary composite layups as well as technologies we have licensed exclusively from NASA to use and further develop support the deployment of our membranes and structures in novel ways.
Tape Deployer Assembly
MMA’s Tape Deployer Assemblies, or TDAs, are a building block of our booms, some antenna architectures, solar arrays and other deployables. These are mechanical drive units for storage and deployment of slit tube tapes for large membranes and truss boom deployment systems. Our TDAs have been flight proven on a P-DaHGR antenna with the R3D2 mission.
Membranes
Our membranes are our competitive advantage. Using these in a variety of architectures and for many applications enable high-compaction stowage requirements for our large deployables and light weight structures.
Deployment Hinges
Constant Torque hinge deployment mechanism with rate control and position sensor for large, rigid, multi-panel deployment systems, such as Solar Arrays.
Drive Control Unit
Provides motor driver and controls for Tape Deployer Assemblies and other motorized mechanisms.
Hard Stop Actuator
Used for fine angle adjustment in large panel deployment systems.
Emulators
Provide hardware in the loop testing capabilities for early program checkout / simulations.
Our Facility
Our HQ
MMA’s facility in the Colorado Tech Center in Louisville, Colorado is home to our team of fiercely creative engineers, transparent and dedicated program managers, manufacturing/AI+T team focused on quality and excellence, talented team of machine artisans, and people leaders and explorers all of whom are passionate about our craft.
Our facility is large, clean and open, with inspiring 360 degree views. It’s our blank canvas to create, collaborate and innovate, and have fun too.
Planning a visit to MMA?
Space to get HUGE
24-foot, high-bay ceilings are critical for rigorously testing our large deployable systems. Our testing lab includes:
- Thermal cycling chambers
- Precision photogrammetry measurement capability
- Vicon motion capture system
- An 800 ft2 gravity off-load area with up to 22 ft system height
Engineering + Analysis
Our team of nearly 50 full-time engineers, analysts, manufacturing engineers, and technicians work collaboratively together in a 8,600 ft2 creative working space, leveraging the tools of our trade SolidWorks, NASTRAN, MatLab, MathCAD, Photomodeller, and SolidWorks Simulation to name a few.
Research + Development
Our research + development leads to the commercialization of revolutionary, disruptive solutions. We have 1,500 ft² of dedicated high-bay R&D space in which to explore. And, leveraging rapid prototyping tools and methods such as multi-material FDM and SLA 3D printing capabilities, electro-mechanical tools and expertise, and agile early systems development, we take a hardware-centric approach to developing our solutions. CAD, analysis and years of experience are great tools, but rapid prototyping, building hardware and testing rigorously are critical to our brand of innovation.
In-house Composite Fabrication
Our R+D extends to exploring the best, most effective materials and processes for creating composites for our missions. We have dedicated 400 ft2 of composite fabrication space to house in-house mold fabrication capabilities, ply cutting, layup, and vacuum bagging capability and a 10 ft composite curing oven.
Assembly, Integration + Testing
A critical 6,750 ft2 of our floor is dedicated to AI&T where our assembly team does the precision work of skillfully assembling our custom solutions. The clean assembly areas are rigorously managed for quality and safety to ensure that each product is documented, assembled and tested correctly. Here too, we have 24 ft ceiling heights for handling large deployables.
Manufacturing + Fabrication
Our integrated machine shop, occupying 3,150 ft2 of our facility, includes:
- GibbsCam 2022 CAD/CAM
-
2019 HAAS VF3SSYT with 4th axis capability
- 2017 HAAS VF-2SS with 4th axis capability
- 2005 HAAS VF-2SS
- 2020 HAAS UMC 500 5-Axis
- 2021 UMC 500 5-Axis
- Sharp Knee Mill with Trak A.G.E.2 Control
- Inspection equipment
- Brown & Sharp MicroVal CMM
Not to mention, very talented machine artisans capable of machining the most challenging, precision, custom parts.
Quality
We don’t just have a quality department, we believe in a quality mindset. MMA sets high standards for our products and services while promoting innovation and improvements that exceed our customers’ expectations. We make infinite POSSIBILITIES a reality.
Download MORE information about our High-strain Composite Boom Technologies
Our Approach to Deployables
Hardware-centric Philosophy
We know that when engineers hear “deployables” they typically associate it with risk. When we think about deployables — the secret weapon at the core of all our disruptive solutions — we only see opportunities to accomplish MORE by combining novel thinking with clever, artful packaging strategies that minimize stowed volume and mass to orbit, while remaining both robust and reliable.
From our earliest days, we’ve always believed that taking a hardware-centric approach drives us to learn as much as we can early in the design cycle and then retire risk at every phase of development. Key to this approach is early prototyping and testing so we can fail fast and iterate. Some call it Agile. We just call it the MMA way.
Cross-disciplinary Expertise
Lead by experts with many years of experience in moving mechanical assemblies, composite materials, space structures, analysis, and integration + test, our cross-disciplinary teams include materials experts, mechanical, RF, manufacturing, systems and electrical engineers, electromechanical technicians, and machine craftsman. This broad expertise enables us to deliver reliable solutions with industry-leading performance metrics no matter what the mission. And, well-funded internal research and development in emerging technologies means MMA can continue to redefine the state of the art in robust, high-performance deployable systems for space, keeping us on the bleeding edge.
Close collaboration across the team is also critical to our ability to distill designs to their most essential components, minimizing parts count, cost and risk through reduced system complexity. Our small company culture inspires collaboration, and we fiercely protect our mandate to be innovative. Frequent peer review, with key input from all disciplines on the team and levels of our organization — including our Chief Engineer, CEO and CTO — ensures we are applying best practices, novel thinking, and lessons learned to further mitigate risk.
Testing Makes Perfect
Our critical infrastructure enables us to evaluate structural strength and stiffness, execute gravity-offload deployments, environmental testing (vacuum, thermal, vibration), functional testing and RF range testing, followed by flight acceptance testing on the ground to demonstrate and ensure reliable and repeatable performance.
We know we can’t repair our systems once they are in space, so while we embrace failure during development as a method of accelerating advancements, failure is not an option on-orbit. And to date, we’ve delivered stellar results.
Our Customers
