Flight Electromechanical Systems

Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corporation has provided flight hardware mechanisms for over two decades. We pride ourselves on developing efficient, tightly integrated systems, often on accelerated schedules to meet mission-critical milestones. Just over the past 10 years, Honeybee mechanisms have flown (or will fly) on the following missions:

• USAF 2007 STPSat-1
• NASA 2003 Mars Exploration Rover
• NASA 2007 Phoenix Mars Lander
• NASA 2011 Mars Science Laboratory
• NASA Constellation Systems
• NSPO FORMOSAT-5

Honeybee's flight work includes new product development, build-to-print manufacturing, and design consulting. Our specific flight development and production capabilities are outlined below. Explore the links at right to learn more about some of our recent and up-and-coming flight systems.

Flight Development and Production Capabilities

Systems Engineering

• Specification development & interface definition
• Requirements flow-down & traceability analysis
• Configuration management & design control
• Engineering cost, schedule & risk analysis

Mechanical Design

• Solid modeling & 3D design
• Static, dynamic & thermal FEA
• Mechanical event simulation
• Fault-tree & preventative action analysis

Electrical & Electronics Design

• Flight twist capsule & slip ring design
• Analog & digital PCB design & layout
• Conventional & flex print cable harness design
• Electrical ground support equipment (GSE) design

Software Development

• Algorithm development & GSE emulation
• Embedded software and driver development
• Data acquisition, processing & visualization tools design
• GUI development

Production

• ISO9001 & AS9100C certified process qualification & control
• Receiving & in-process inspection with NCM handling
• Technicians certified to NASA 8739 workmanship standards
• CNC machine shop
• Assembly in Class-100 & Class-10,000 clean environments

Design validation

• Full V&V planning & procedure development
• Environmental testing (thermal-vac, vibe, and EMC/EMI)
• Dynamometer & load capability testing
• Functional, life & operational testing (lab & field)  

“While contractors routinely talk about having a partnership instead of simply a contract with us, the only place that I have ever seen this work is with Honeybee Robotics. Honeybee’s commitment to excellence in quality and timeliness on the Phoenix project was exceeded only by their excellent dedication to cost and customer interaction, satisfaction and total teamwork.”

—Barry Goldstein, Phoenix Mission Project Manager, JPL