Dhruva Space, French company Comat ink pact for space components

Hyderabad-based Dhruva Space on Thursday signed a pact with France’s strategic equipment supplier Comat for supply of reaction wheels for satellites and components to optimise onboard solar power generation.

As per the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA), both companies will share their technologies — Dhruva Space’s space-grade Solar Arrays for power generation, and Comat’s reaction wheels for attitude determination and Solar Array Drive Assembly for optimisation of onboard power generation — with each other.

This would enable access to market and commercial opportunities for each other while jointly offering diverse solutions to third-party customers.

“The signing of an MoA with Comat is emblematic of the convergence of views from both French and Indian industries, marking a new phase of growth and collaboration between Comat and Dhruva Space,” Sanjay Nekkanti, Chief Executive Officer DhruvaSpace, said in a statement.

“Through this partnership, our complementary skills will allow us to provide world-class equipment and services to satellite operators customers in the region,” said Ludovic Daudois, CEO, Comat.

As part of its Space-as-a-Service offering, Dhruva Space builds satellite platforms up to 300 kg with multi-payload configurations, widening the company’s scope to work with any payload.

In November 2022, Dhruva Space successfully deployed two satellites Thybolt-1 and Thybolt-2 onboard ISRO’s PSLV-C54.

Dhruva Space has been building low-earth orbit-optimised spacecraft solar arrays for micro and mini class of satellites.

In 2020, Dhruva Space became the first private Indian company to secure an end-to-end order for space-grade solar arrays.

Comat’s plug-and-play reaction wheels of various form factors are designed for detumbling, attitude control, and torque or angular rate control of satellites.

These systems are fully characterised and qualified according to the European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS), and are designed to operate in the space environment for eight years.

Comat’s SADM 400 is a plug-and-play Solar Array Drive Mechanism for small satellites to optimise onboard power generation. It has unlimited rotation (slip ring), offers compact accommodation, and a five-year lifetime, the statement said. PTI