R&D - Space

Honeybee received its first NASA contract in 1986. Today, we actively work with nine of NASA's eleven Centers and a number of NASA primes, a respected contractor to both the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD). Several Honeybee personnel are known as world-class experts in their fields, publishing widely and serving on numerous Mission Science Teams, Science Definition Teams, and conference panels.

Our R&D for space ranges from demonstration of near-term solutions (e.g. design, build, and test a proof-of-concept model of a planetary drive for a Constellation solar array) to generating futuristic concepts (e.g. study how we might drill down kilometers to the subsurface oceans of Europa). Even when we work on far-horizon problems, however, Honeybee’s experience as a flight hardware supplier ensures that we build our solutions around the constraints associated with space systems—mass, power, volume, reliability, and autonomy.

We pride ourselves on innovative thinking, but our creativity is tempered with analytical rigor and cost-conscious practicality. Our R&D philosophy has always been to reduce risk early on by building inexpensive hardware breadboards, demonstrating basic functionality of key components and assessing the performance limits of candidate designs.