Airbus to deliver more than 200 Sparkwing solar arrays to MDA Space

Airbus has been selected by MDA Space Ltd., a provider of advanced technology and services to the rapidly expanding global space industry, to supply solar arrays for MDA AURORA, the software-defined satellite product line enabling constellations to extend communication networks to every corner of the world.

Airbus will supply more than 200 Sparkwing solar arrays that will be built on a designated line at Airbus' high-capacity production facility in Leiden, the Netherlands. The solar array is the largest Sparkwing to date, consisting of two wings with five panels each and providing a photovoltaic area of well over 30 square meters.

The MDA AURORA supply chain will help support product deliveries for anchor customer Telesat’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation Lightspeed, an innovative, advanced global network that will bring enterprise-class connectivity to customers worldwide.

“We are delighted to be selected as the supplier of solar arrays to partner with MDA Space for Telesat Lightspeed. Our industrialized Sparkwing solar array product not only meets the demands of this ground-breaking constellation project, but is also tailored to ensure optimal performance in space. The Sparkwing solar arrays are designed for series production, ideally suited for constellations, and we will accordingly contribute to a project enabling space connectivity,” said Rob Postma, managing director of Airbus in the Netherlands.

Designed to meet the changing technical and business requirements of the satellite industry, the software-defined MDA AURORA software-defined satellite product line provides operators with flexibility and functionality, enhancing constellation performance at reduced cost and time to market.

Sparkwing is the world’s first commercially available, off-the-shelf solar array for small satellites. It was originally optimized for Low Earth Orbit missions that require power levels between 100W and 2,000W. It offers customers a choice of more than 30 different panel dimensions, configurable into deployable wings with one, two, or three panels per wing, with single actuation need (due to only one hold-down per wing). In the meantime, its application range has grown to cover also higher power demands and more and larger panels per wing for missions to LEO and beyond. Next to power generation, the solar array product provides a high stiffness, minimal integration effort (made for integration by the customer) and benign demands on the spacecraft sidewall tolerances. Sparkwing is a product developed by Airbus in the Netherlands, with the support of the Netherlands Space Office and ESA.

A robotics, satellite systems and geointelligence pioneer with a 55-year+ story of world firsts and more than 450 missions, MDA Space is a global leader in communications satellites, Earth and space observation, and space exploration and infrastructure. The MDA Space team has more than 3,000 space experts in Canada, the US, and the UK.