
Mechanisms
Quartus’ experience developing reliable mechanisms for challenging spaceborne and airborne environments spans a variety of applications – from precision pointing electro-opto-mechanical devices for free space laser communication satellite constellations to simple yet highly reliable launch restraint designs. Our innovative team can offer a full suite of engineering services to address your challenging application.
CAPABILITIES
Complete Development Cycle
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Requirements definition, systems engineering, conceptual trade study, risk reduction testing, detailed mechanism design/analysis, assembly, integration, and test
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Cleanroom environment
Spaceborne and Airborne Applications
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Positioning and pointing systems
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Launch restraints
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Spacecraft deployables
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Flight control actuators
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UAV launch systems

Flight control surface actuator linkage design and analysis

Structural FEM

CASE STUDY
Spaceborne coarse pointing mechanism with launch lock for laser communication
Quartus engineers designed, analyzed, built, and fully tested a spaceborne dual axis gimbal mechanism for high-throughput optical inter-satellite links. The effort focused on lowering manufacturing costs, minimizing complexity, and reducing risk for high volume manufacturing (targeted +1,000 per year) for a coarse pointing assembly and launch lock device for satellite constellation communication. The coarse pointing assembly was capable of providing precision line-of-sight articulation over a near-hemispherical field of regard, all while using mainly commercial off-the-shelf components.
Prototype assembly
“…we turned this entire prototype around in just over 6 months from mostly clean sheets of paper to working prototypes…it is our nimble and development-supporting vendors, such as Quartus (a rare bird in this manner), who really made the program a success.”
-Matt Michel, Northrop Grumman Docking Mechanisms System Architect

2020 NASA Langley - Small Business Sub-contractor of the Year
Related Capabilities
System Design
Testing
Simulation
Hardware