By Faughn Hi-Tech 0 Comments

Stockton’s Applied Aerospace acquires firm that worked on Webb Telescope

A Stockton-based aerospace company is reaching for the stars with the acquisition of a firm that, among other things, was part of the team that created the deployable sunshield on the James Webb Space Telescope. Applied Aerospace, which makes various aerospace components, said earlier this month it has completed the acquisition of NeXolve, a Huntsville, Alabama, company with expertise in advanced polymers, films and resins used in space applications.

NeXolve helped create a five-layer sunshield for the Webb Telescope that’s the size of a tennis court. Because the telescope’s scientific breakthroughs are made by detecting infrared radiation, it needs to be kept extremely cold. The sunshield protects the spacecraft from the intense heat of the sun. NeXolve has made other membrane-based products for space as well. These include deployable solar sails that gather radiation from the sun to propel a satellite. And the company crafted an atmospheric drag sail that can brake a failing or antiquated satellite to force it reenter the atmosphere where it harmlessly burns up instead of becoming another piece of space junk.

In acquiring NeXolve, Applied Aerospace also picks up its modern facilities. Those include a spacecraft assembly bay and a characterization laboratory.

“The complementary engineering capabilities that NeXolve brings to the Applied Aerospace family is incredible,” Applied Aerospace CEO Kevin Bidlack said in the statement. “By combining our capabilities, we look forward to developing a new generation of deployable sub-systems that will help our customers improve the mission effectiveness and extend the service life of their spacecraft.”

NeXolve’s work in developing, making and testing the sunshield on the Webb Space Telescope, billed by NASA as the largest and most complex instrument of its kind ever put into space, earned the company NASA’s Collier Trophy for achievement in astronautics.

Applied Aerospace also makes a variety of aeronautical products. They range from fairings, rudders and elevators on the refueling boom of the Air Force’s KC-46A Pegasus air tanker, a derivation of the Boeing 767, to the composite reflector and strut assembly on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Due to launch in two years, the Roman Space Telescope is designed for research into dark energy and dark matter.

Applied Aerospace’s business has been soaring. It announced in February that it closed its fiscal year with a backlog of $450 million in work, a company record high. The company said it landed 37 new contract awards and saw expansions in its existing programs.

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