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07/06/2011
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Leicestershire based firm Magna Parva has been awarded a £33,000 grant by the UK Technology Strategy Board to develop a consolidated, off planet manufacturing and assembly system for large space structures (copma).
 According to company director Andrew Bowyer, copma makes use of technology such as pultrusion - a continuous process of manufacturing composite materials of any length and with constant cross section. It is already being used to make large structures with directly embedded sensors and is now being targeted for use in space.
"One of the limiting factors in the development of space is the cost and complexity of launching large structures such as solar arrays from launch vehicles," said Bowyer. "When assembled in space, structures can be made thinner and use less material as they do not have to withstand the force of gravity.
"With launch costs increasing, copma should provide a valuable alternative to pre manufactured infrastructure components and plays directly to our strengths in extreme engineering. We are very grateful to the Technology Strategy Board for their support and the increased capability this gives us to tackle other related projects."
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Author
Laura Hopperton
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