Rocket Lab Just Announced An Upcoming Heliophysics Mission
The space industry offers a large number of different opportunities. NASA is a massive agency working on a large list of projects, many of which target different aspects of space. We have also seen the agency work with a lot of commercial companies to help grow the industry and save NASA time and money. The recent mission announcement from Rocket Lab is no different.
Just two days ago on June 9th, Rocket Lab was selected by Ball Aerospace to manufacture the Solar Array Panel (SAP) to power NASA’s Global Lyman-Alpha Imager of Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE) mission spacecraft planned to launch in 2025. This is another unique launch that has been awarded to Rocket Lab based on the company’s capabilities, consistency, and cost.
This launch is expected to bring more than just one payload and be an important part of this mission and its goal. This joins the long list of Rocket Lab missions planned for the near future, each with a different contractor and goal. Here I will go more in-depth into the recent announcement, mission overview, and how Rocket Lab will help.
Recent Update
The first update and glimpse into this mission came on June 9th when Rocket Lab tweeted saying, “We’re powering up two heliophysics missions in 2025 – NASA’s GLIDE spacecraft and NOAA’s SWFO-L1, both manufactured by Ball Aerospace. Rocket Lab is no stranger to heliophysics missions, having previously powered the Parker Solar Probe and the Magnetosphere Multiscale mission. The same day they tweeted again this time mentioning, “We’re powering another mission to study the Sun! We’ve been selected by @BallAerospace to build the solar array panel on @NASA’s GLIDE spacecraft.”
Taking a closer look, GLIDE is a heliophysics mission intended to study variability in Earth’s atmosphere. The SAP will utilize SolAero by Rocket Lab’s high-efficiency, radiation-hardened, quadruple-junction Z4J solar cells, laid down on carbon composite face sheet panels manufactured at the company’s facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not long ago, Rocket Lab announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire SolAero Holdings, Inc., a premier supplier of space solar power products and precision aerospace structures for the global aerospace market, for $80 million in cash. The acquisition aligns with Rocket Lab’s growth strategy of vertical integration to deliver a comprehensive space solution that spans spacecraft manufacture, satellite subsystems, flight software, ground operations, and launch. As one of only two companies producing high-efficiency, space-grade solar cells in the United States, SolAero’s space solar cells are among the highest performing in the world, and support civil space exploration, science, defense and intelligence, and commercial markets. In combining with Rocket Lab, SolAero will tap into the Company’s resources and manufacturing capability to boost high-volume production, making high-performing space power technologies available at scale.
The GLIDE spacecraft will launch with another Rocket Lab-powered spacecraft, also built by Ball Aerospace, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1). SWFO-L1 is a heliophysics mission that will collect solar wind data and coronal imagery to meet NOAA’s operational requirements to monitor and forecast solar storm activity. “Rocket Lab has become the ‘go-to’ provider of space solar power and space systems products throughout the space industry, including for ambitious heliophysics missions like GLIDE,” said Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck. “I am grateful to our partners at Ball Aerospace for selecting Rocket Lab and excited to be working with them to support NASA’s Heliophysics missions to deliver advanced science.” Rocket Lab has provided power to multiple spacecraft as part of NASA’s Heliophysics Division missions including the Parker Solar Probe, the first-ever mission to “touch” the Sun that launched in 2018, and the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, a robotic space mission to study Earth’s magnetosphere that launched in 2015.
Rocket Lab’s Solar Panels
While Rocket Lab’s main purpose with contracts like these is often the launch service using Electron, the company over time has expanded its capabilities and offered more to different customers. We have watched Rocket Lab acquire a lot of companies over the past few years as they work towards becoming a company that offers a wide range of capabilities. As I partially mentioned prior, in 2022, Rocket Lab acquired leading satellite solar power producer SolAero Technologies. Today, they create world-class innovative solutions that are powering the space industry.
As of right now, they offer a suite of vertically-integrated space solar panel products, each specifically designed for missions to LEO, MEO, GEO, or interplanetary applications. They are the world’s only vertically integrated supplier of Solar Array Panels (SAP). In addition, they also supply the panel substrates on which the fully integrated PVA solar panels are built. They provide SmallSat & CubeSat developers access to a range of high performance solar panel sizes and power options that are integrated with its highest efficiency, commercially available multi-junction space solar cells. SolAero offers light-weight, high stiffness and zero CTE graphite laminate panels for CubeSats, while offering affordable “standard” AI Honeycomb CFRP face sheet substrates for SmallSats. When looking at larger groups of satellites, SolAero have a dedicated Space 2.0 panel substrate and automated PVA line for high-throughput and low cost production for satellite constellations. This redesigned PVA line provides a more robust process that includes composite layup, assembly and machining, and PVA laydown.
The acquisition of the company was a big deal for both Rocket Lab and SolAero because it increased Rocket Lab’s opportunities and provided SolAero with a lot more resources. Since then, SolAero has continued to work on its capabilities and provide as much as possible. This starts with solar cell manufacturing. They point out that their manufacturing facility, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a world-class facility that includes cleanroom spaces for cell (Class 1k), CIC (Class 1k), and panel manufacturing (Class 10k). SolAero’s cell production line is capitalized to produce >1 MWe per year. Not only this but SolAero’s automated manufacturing and assembly capabilities enable achieving higher production volumes at lower cost. Because SPM, PVA panel and PVA manufacturing has historically been performed manually, SolAero has taken the unprecedented step of introducing several automated approaches. They also maintain a variety of environmental test facilities, including TVAC and APTC chambers and numerous ambient thermal cycling chambers. These test chambers enable them to provide timely and cost-effective test solutions. Lastly, they have a large staff of highly experienced engineers and scientists who support all of their product development activities. This team consists of subject matter experts in device physics and analytics, semiconductor materials development, semiconductor fabrication, and device characterization. All of which work together to provide high quality solar options in a time efficient manner.
In terms of the history of the company, founded in 1998 SolAero’s solar cells, solar panels, and composite structural products have supported more than 1,000 successful space missions with 100% reliability and mission success to date. Over the past two decades, SolAero’s products have played key roles in some of the industry’s most ambitious space missions, including supplying power to NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and Mars Insight Lander, the largest solar array ever deployed on the surface of Mars, and several Cygnus Cargo Resupply Missions to the International Space Station. SolAero also led the development and manufacturing of the solar panel on Ingenuity, the helicopter that successfully flew on Mars in April this year, marking the first ever powered, controlled flight on a planet other than Earth. SolAero technology has also made commercial constellations possible, providing power to OneWeb’s broadband constellation. Most recently, SolAero has been selected to supply Solar Power Modules for the Power and Propulsion Element of NASA’s Gateway as part of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration plans, which will enable future missions to Mars.
The addition of SolAero’s 425-strong team brings Rocket Lab’s total headcount to more than 1,100 employees across its space manufacturing complexes, test facilities, and launch sites in California, Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, Toronto, New Zealand and now Albuquerque, New Mexico. The SolAero team continues to be led by President and CEO Brad Clevenger at SolAero’s 154,696 ft² (14,372 m²) production facilities in New Mexico.
Conclusion
Rocket Lab has been very busy and making great progress towards the company’s broad goal. This goal consists of becoming more than just a launch provider. Peter Beck has made it clear that he wants Rocket Lab to be a one stop shop and provide a large list of necessary aspects of accessing space. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.