SAN FRANCISCO – New Mexico startup mPower Technology announced a contract Oct. 3 with Airbus Netherlands B.V. to provide solar power modules for more than 200 satellites.
“It’s one of the largest space power module contracts ever announced, and clearly the largest for mPower,” Kevin Hell, mPower president and CEO, told SpaceNews.
The value of the contract was not disclosed. Under the agreement, mPower will supply DragonSCALES solar modules to Airbus for MDA Aurora, the software-defined satellites being built for communications constellations including Canadian satellite operator Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation.
Starting in 2025, mPower will deliver DragonSCALE modules capable of generating 1.1 megawatts of power for 200 Airbus Sparkwing solar arrays. Each solar array consists of two wings with five panels apiece covering more than 30 square meters.
Recent declines in launch costs are leading to “more frequent, ambitious satellite programs” including low-Earth orbit constellations, lunar missions and space habitats, Hell said. “These large-scale high-powered missions are going to need affordable and reliable power in large volumes.”
Automated ProductionThe contract with Airbus also marks “a shift toward a new commercialized, automated world of production for solar at scale,” Hell said.
DragonSCALE modules for the Sparkwing solar arrays will be produced on an automated high-volume production line in New York operated by Universal Instrument Corp., owned by Delta Electronics. In 2022, mPower raised $10 million in a Series B investment round to scale up production of its interconnected photovoltaic cells, which are designed to be more customizable, flexible and inexpensive to produce than traditional solar cells.
For the Airbus contract and other customers, mPower and Universal Instrument intend to expand production. The line already has capacity to manufacture modules that can produce 1.5 megawatts per year.
“To put that in perspective, that’s roughly equivalent to the entire combined output of the traditional gallium-arsenide-based solutions that are out there,” Hell said.
“mPower’s solar-cell technology is the right choice for this mission because it has the best price per watt in combination with our innovative Sparkwing solar arrays,” Rob van Hassel, Airbus Netherlands business director Solar Arrays, said in a statement. “The partnership builds on Airbus’ close observation of mPower developing the DragonSCALES technology over the past five years.”
Flight heritage for mPower DragonSCALES comes from direct-to-smartphone constellation startup Lynk Global. In addition, DragonSCALES power modules reached orbit on JoeySat, an Airbus-built satellite designed to test capabilities for OneWeb’s second-generation constellation.