Millennium Space Systems and Sinclair Interplanetary Enjoy Wheel-y Good News

[SatNews] The Company sees vertical integration as a means of reducing cost, schedule, and risk for its own satellite programs, while also bringing highly competitive satellite components onto the open market.

Millennium Space Systems and Sinclair Interplanetary announced at the AIAA/USU SmallSat Conference held in Logan, Utah, that Millennium is the exclusive U.S. manufacturer and distributor of Sinclair’s RW3-1.0 small satellite wheel.

Click on the Millennium graphic to learn more. This agreement caps a successful technology transfer program under which Millennium has produced a batch of six reaction wheels, and tested two units to full NASA qualification levels. The arrangement also provides small satellite developers an American supplier for Sinclair’s high quality, precision mechanism.

Millennium Space Systems, developer and operator of the National Reconnaissance Office’s Rapid Pathfinder satellite, is currently expanding the scope of its subsystem manufacturing. The Company sees vertical integration as a means of reducing cost, schedule, and risk for its own satellite programs, while also bringing highly competitive satellite components onto the open market.

Click on the Sinclair graphic to learn more. “Millennium and Sinclair make excellent partners,” says Dr. Jeff Ward, Millennium’s Vice President of Product Development. ”We both demand the highest quality materials and workmanship, while still producing the affordable components necessary for today’s budget-constrained missions.”

“Millennium allows us to meet our customers’ demands for high-volume, U.S.-based manufacturing for the microsatellite wheel,” commented Doug Sinclair, owner and principal engineer of Toronto, Canada-based Sinclair Interplanetary. The two companies inked the agreement following a daylong manufacturing and qualification data review held at Millennium’s space manufacturing facility in Torrance, California. The review covered details of the technology transfer, supply chain logistics, and the qualification test results.

Millennium initially offers the product as Millennium RWA1000, with a set of four wheels priced at $240,000. A full flight ship set of four wheels is in stock and ready to deliver.