Why Rocket Lab Is Working On Solar Panels
The last week has been both very nerve racking and exciting as Rocket Lab launched CAPSTONE on the company’s first mission to the Moon. Thankfully, the rocket launched successfully and Photon performed as intended finishing with the separation of the third stage from CAPSTONE. Its missions like these that Rocket Lab is trying to play a bigger role in the future.
Many times now both Rocket Lab and especially CEO Peter Beck have pointed out that the company intends to become much more than just a launch provider. This has been the reason among others for so many acquisitions in recent years. A great example is the acquisition of SolAero and the opportunities this presents to Rocket Lab.
The space industry requires high quality components to power different spacecraft, satellites, and much more. Rocket Lab knows this very well and wants to help supply and create this technology of the future, before launching it. Here I will go more in-depth into the acquisition made earlier this year, the upcoming missions it applies to, its overall importance, and what to expect in the coming months.
Recent Updates
Right at the beginning of the year on January 18th, Rocket Lab announced it had closed the previously-announced transaction to acquire SolAero Holdings, Inc. (SolAero), a premier supplier of space solar power products and precision aerospace structures for the global aerospace market, for $80 million in cash. Rocket Lab announced the execution of the agreement to acquire SolAero on December 13, 2021 pending certain closing conditions. 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 considered 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.
“SolAero has established itself as a premier provider of solar technologies and we are very excited to be joining forces,” said Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck. “SolAero is a highly complementary addition to Rocket Lab’s vertically integrated business model, enabling us to deliver complete space mission solutions for our customers. With more than 1,000 successful missions under their belt, the team at SolAero have enabled trailblazing missions, providing space solar power solutions for the James Webb Space Telescope, and missions on Mars including InSight and Ingenuity. We are thrilled to be combining our innovative teams, industry-leading technologies, and strong resources to enable our customers to achieve incredible things in space.”
“We are very excited to join the outstanding team at Rocket Lab and contribute to their track record of innovation and on-orbit success,” said SolAero President and CEO, Brad Clevenger. “We look forward to becoming an integral part of Rocket Lab’s Space Systems business while continuing to offer all of our customers premier capability and value.” Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 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.
In terms of recent applications, on June 9 Rocket Lab tweeted saying, “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.” Specifically, the solar array panel 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. The other recent application comes from Firefly Aerospace. Not long ago on May 31st, the company tweeted mentioning, “Lunar Update: More hardware coming to fruition as our partner @SolaeroTech delivered the three flight solar panels that will support our Blue Ghost M1 landing on the Moon early 2024.” This highlights the fact that Rocket Lab and SolAero panels are already being used on other upcoming missions for companies like Firefly Aerospace and more.
SolAero Future
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 will continue to be led by President and CEO Brad Clevenger at SolAero’s 154,696 ft² production facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The SolAero merger follows on from the acquisition of space software company ASI Aerospace LLC in October 2021, spacecraft separation systems company Planetary Systems Corporation in December 2021, and satellite components manufacturer Sinclair Interplanetary in April 2020. In addition to the acquisition itself, recently the company has been working to upgrade its hardware. They announced not long ago their next-generation solar cell technology is transitioning into qualification. The cell is the next product from SolAero’s patented Inverted MetaMorphic (IMM) solar cell technology, dubbed IMM-β, that is expected to exhibit a conversion efficiency of about 33.3% in volume production.
“We’re excited to bring to market this next significant step in solar cell performance,” said Brad Clevenger, Vice President & General Manager, Space Systems Power Solutions. “In partnership with our colleagues at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), we’re not only commercializing the world’s highest efficiency and lightest weight space solar cell, we’re doing so at the most competitive cost of any IMM technology to date. IMM-β‘s impact on solar array and launch mass will make it a compelling option for satellite integrators.”
“IMM-β’s superior performance is a mission enabler in many applications in the civil, military and commercial space markets. It is also the next stepping stone to even higher performance future IMM solar cell technologies, solidifying SolAero’s segment leading position for many years to come,” added Navid Fatemi, SolAero’s Vice President of Business Development. “For 20 years SolAero has been a leader in space solar power innovation and we’re excited to welcome them to the Rocket Lab team as they take yet another technological leap,” said Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck. “The SolAero team has enabled trailblazing science missions to distant interplanetary destinations and powered commercial constellations of hundreds of satellites in low Earth orbit, and with the new IMM-β cells they can power the future of space exploration. Solar power is a crucial part of every spacecraft and SolAero is already home to the world’s largest production line of high-performing solar cells. Now with Rocket Lab’s resources and manufacturing capability behind them, we look forward to scaling the business to meet the growing demands of the global space market.”
In terms of additional opportunities, they provide SmallSat & CubeSat developers access to a range of high performance solar panel sizes and power options that are integrated with their highest efficiency, commercially available multi-junction space solar cells. SolAero highlights that they offer light-weight, high stiffness, and zero CTE graphite laminate panels for CubeSats, while offering affordable “standard” AI Honeycomb CFRP face sheet substrates for SmallSats. All of which work toward Rocket Lab’s ambitious future goals.
Conclusion
Rocket Lab has had a busy week and past few months as they continue to make progress and launch different missions. While they have become a very impressive launch provider over the last few years thanks to Electron, the company has more ambitious goals for the future. This is why they have acquired SolAero and other companies within the industry. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.