Toray Advanced Composites has signed a long-term supply agreement with Airborne Aerospace, headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, to provide advanced composite materials for the production of solar array substrates for mega-constellation satellites.

With over four decades of space heritage and in-flight, mission critical reliability, Toray’s space qualified epoxy-based, carbon fibre-reinforced materials will be manufactured and supplied from Toray’s European Centre of Excellence for thermoset systems in Langley Mill, UK, and used by Airborne in the manufacture of the solar array substrates and yoke panels.

Produced to tight tolerances on fibre areal weight, resin content and slit width, the high-performance materials from Toray will be supplied in six-inch wide unidirectional prepreg tape format for high-volume production using Airborne’s robotic automated tape laying (ATL) technology, specifically developed for space applications.

“With over 40 years of space-flight heritage, Toray is proud to support the next generation of LEO satellite constellations with our flight-proven material systems,” said Claire Baker, development lead for space and comms at Toray Advanced Composites. “Our lightweight composites offer the ideal combination of high stiffness, excellent toughness and low outgassing, which when combined with their proven inflight reliability makes them perfectly suited for demanding space environments and for automated, scalable manufacturing.

 “As the space sector moves toward high-rate production, automation is key. Airborne demonstrates how advanced carbon fibre composites and smart manufacturing enable the performance, scalability, and affordability needed to expand global access to space.”

“This agreement is the result of many years of close collaboration between Toray and Airborne on the development and manufacturing of spacecraft structures,” added Sandor Woldendorp, aerospace director at Airborne “Our companies share a vision on making composites affordable and scalable for new space applications.”

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