Rock West Composites provided hardware to Intuitive Machines for incorporation into its recently launched Nova-C lunar lander, Odysseus. Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 Mission is sending its lander to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative and Artemis campaign. RWC delivered multiple configurations of machined and tested struts with bonded fittings. The struts included both circular cross-section tubes with and without bonded titanium fittings, and rectangular tubes with a tooled surface on both the inside and outside face.
The RWC-provided struts were primarily constructed of HM63/PMT-F6 unidirectional prepreg with 0.010″ and tighter surface profile and straightness requirements. The rectangular tubes were especially challenging due to the tooled surface requirement on both the interior and exterior with a tight surface profile requirement on both sides to allow for next-level assembly tolerances. The hardware was build-to-print, but RWC provided input on the final design for manufacturability and requirements compliance. The struts with bonded fittings were pull-tested in-house at RWC prior to final integration at Intuitive Machines.
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“We are honored to support our commercial customers in this race to the Moon and ultimately a sustained human presence there,” said Jeremy Senne, RWC’s Space Segment Director. “Our precision composite components can give our customers the performance they need to succeed in this high-risk and clearly challenging business.”
Rock West Composites is an employee-owned, advanced composites company. RWC develops, engineers, manufactures, and tests composite products for multiple industries including Space (bus structures, solar array panels and wings, strut assemblies, launch vehicle structures), Aerospace & Defense (radomes, aircraft, and weapon components) and Commercial Equipment (industrial, medical, energy, and sporting). The company is also one of the largest ecommerce suppliers of off-the-shelf carbon fiber tubes, plates, materials, and accessories.
SOURCE : PRWeb