New Zealand headquartered space-flight systems company Zenno Astronautics (Zenno) announced that it had surpassed $75M in product sales (USD 48M) for its superconducting magnetorquer for spacecraft attitude control, the Z01.
Built on Zenno’s proprietary superconducting magnet technology, Z01 is a fuel-free satellite pointing system designed to significantly increases the range of capabilities for attitude control in space, including fully autonomous satellite positioning and extended satellite orbit time.
Zenno CEO and co-founder Max Arshavsky says achieving the sales milestone for Z01 in under a year demonstrates that the global space industry is embracing innovative technology that solves a real problem. The Zenno invention enables higher performance in satellite design and function, offering benefits well beyond the constraints of existing technologies.
Alarming in its simplicity, the Z01’s pointing capabilities unlock new opportunities and new services in orbit by enabling better imagery and communications and offering the benefit of more time in space.
Zenno is planning to launch its first full-scale Z01 attitude control system in late 2023. The innovation is the first of several the six-year-old company is bringing to market to support its mission to build life in space.
Zenno’s Z01 super torquer consumes electricity only and does not require on-satellite fuel consumption for satellite control in orbit. In contrast, existing propulsion systems that enable these movements require fuel until a satellite’s mission ends.
Powered by solar panels, Zenno’s Z01 on-satellite hardware uses cryogenically cooled high-temperature superconductors to generate strong magnetic fields, which interact with the Earth’s geomagnetic field, allowing the satellite to rotate and shift.
Attitude control systems are one of the largest and heaviest subsystems on a satellite. Z01 is significantly smaller and lighter than existing attitude control technologies.
