NASA contracts out development of new solar array

Space.com : ATK’s Space Components Division received a $6.4 million contract from NASA’s Space Technology Program to develop a new prototype solar array for use on spacecraft. The 18-month contract for the MegaFlex solar array will build on ATK’s smaller UltraFlex arrays. The UltraFlex arrays are on NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander, and part of Orbital Science’s Cygnus capsule and Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule. The MegaFlex array is planned to be roughly 10 m across, and will provide at least 350 kW of power for solar-electric propulsion systems. In the first phase of the program, ATK hopes to build and test hardware so that in phase two, it can produce a flight demonstration version.