Arlington Capital Partners is a Washington, DC-based private equity firm that is focused on investing in growth industries including aerospace & defence, government services and technology, healthcare, and business services and software.

The operations cover approximately 800 thousand square feet of factory space and employ approximately 600 people. The composites business provides structural and engine composite fabrications and assemblies across commercial, business jet, and defence platforms. Key programs supported by the sites include Boeing 787, 777 and V-22, Airbus A320, A330 and A350, Embraer E-2, Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, as well as the Gulfstream G650/700.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in Triumph’s second quarter of FY21. Following the close of the transaction, the business will retain its management, technical and supporting staff, and will continue operations at the current facilities.

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The static testing demonstrates that the backplane has the structural integrity to withstand the forces and vibrations of launch, and is the final test prior to starting the integration of the backplane with the rest of the telescope.

The support is one of the most lightweight structures ever designed and built. It is the stable platform that will hold the telescope’s science instruments and the 18 beryllium mirror-segments that form the 21-foot-diameter primary mirror nearly motionless while the telescope peers into deep space.

Northrop Grumman is under contract to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, and heads up the industry team that designs and develops the Telescope’s optics, sunshield and spacecraft. ATK designed, engineered and manufactured the more than 10,000 parts of the entire structure at its facilities in Magna, Utah. They used composite parts, lightweight graphite materials, contemporary material sciences and advanced fabrication techniques to build the structure.

Scott Texter, Webb optical telescope element manager, Northrop Grumman said;

This is the largest, most complex cryogenically stable structure humans have ever built. Completion of the static testing verifies that it can hold the weight it is designed to hold. Now the structural backbone of the observatory is officially verified and ready for integration.

In Autumn last year the structure underwent extreme cryogenic thermal testing at Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. Next, Northrop Grumman will integrate the composite structures with the deployment mechanisms to create the overall optical telescope element structure, which will then be shipped to NASA Goddard for integration with the mirrors. NASA and Northrop Grumman will continue cryogenic testing of the PMBSS structure after mirror integration is complete.

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The composites wing is a key capability that will allow the aircraft to descend from high altitudes to make positive identification of targets of interest during surveillance missions. A team of engineers found that no failures or unacceptable deformations of the wing occurred when it was subjected to a load at 22 percent above the Navy’s requirement.

Mike Mackey, Northrop Gumman’s Triton UAS program director said;

During surveillance missions using Triton, Navy operators may spot a target of interest and order the aircraft to a lower altitude to make positive identification, the wing’s strength allows the aircraft to safely descend, sometimes through weather patterns, to complete this manoeuvre.

Northrop Grumman’s wing supplier for its portfolio of high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft systems is Triumph Aerostructures, the testing was conducted at their facility in Dallas. Additional steps needed to certify the wing’s life span include flight tests at various weights placed within the wing that simulate various fuel loads and a fatigue test of the entire airframe that will begin in 2017.

The MQ-4C Triton will provide long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to Navy commanders as a complement to the manned P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. Using a specialised suite of sensors that sweep in a 360-degree field of view, Triton can monitor more than one million square miles of ocean in a single mission.

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The companies that are in the partnership include Bell Helicopters, GE Aviation, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and United technologies. These companies were selected from 20 proposals submitted by teams from industry and academia in response to a call from the Advanced Composites Project, which is part of NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s Integrated Systems Research Program.

The project sought proposals to reduce the time for development, verification and regulatory acceptance of new composite materials and structures. A panel of experts from NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory reviewed the submissions and assessed them according to specific criteria. The six firms were chosen for their technical expertise, willingness and ability to share in costs, certification experience with government agencies, focused technology areas and partnership histories.

The first task for the new team is to develop articles of collaboration and establish how the alliance will work and how companies may be added in the future.

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When combined with the centre section and wings, the support frame will form the primary mirror backplane support structure, the stable platform that holds the telescope’s beryllium mirrors, instruments and other elements. It holds the 18-segment, 21-foot-diameter primary mirror nearly motionless while the telescope is peering into deep space. The backplane support frame is the backbone of the observatory, is the primary load carrying structure for launch, and holds the science instruments.

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Measuring approximately 24 ft. tall by 19.5 ft. wide by more than 11 ft. deep when fully deployed, and weighing only 2,180 lbs., the fully assembled primary mirror backplane support structure will include the wing assemblies, the centre section and the BSF. This fully populated support structure will support the mission payload and instruments weighing more than 7,300 lbs., or more than 300 percent its own weight.

The support frame was designed and fabricated at the ATK facilities in Magna, Utah, the company designed engineered and constructed the more than 10,000 parts of the entire support structure using lightweight graphite materials, state-of-the-art material sciences and advanced fabrication techniques. The composite parts attach in many cases to precision metallic fittings, made of materials such as invar and titanium that provide interfaces with other elements of the observatory.

Bob Hellekson, ATK’s Webb Telescope program manager said;

It is truly inspiring to participate in ideas that lead to invention and finally this fantastic reality of the PMBSS assembly, it continues to be a privilege and an honor for the ATK team to provide program hardware that is arguably the largest and most advanced cryogenic structure ever built.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. It will be the most powerful space telescope ever built and observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars. The Webb telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

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The tailless strike fighter-sized unmanned composite aircraft is currently under development by Northrop Grumman as part of the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program. The aircraft was controlled from onboard the ship and was guided safely back to a runway on the mainland, now that this prototype has proved it can cope with sea launches, other trails have been planned that will navigation and landing features to the test.

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The primary mirror backplane supports the telescope’s 18 beryllium mirrors, instruments and other elements during ground test operations and launch. ATK designed and built the 900 composite parts of the wing assembly using lightweight graphite materials and advanced fabrication techniques. The deployable wing sections complete the backplane structure while providing thermal stability, and their unique folding design permits the telescope to fit in the five metre fairing of the launch vehicle.

The James Webb Space Telescope, named after the NASA administrator who crafted the Apollo program is a large, infrared-optimised space telescope. The project is working to a 2018 launch date. Webb will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. Webb will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. Webb’s instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.

Webb will have a large mirror, 6.5 metres (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won’t fit onto a rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open once Webb is in outer space. Webb will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth.

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Northrop Grumman have entered into a long-term agreement with the advanced composites manufacturer Terma A/S in Denmark to manufacture component parts for the international F-35 Lightning II program.

The agreement, which has a potential value of more than $97 million upon completion of all follow-on options, was signed on Sept. 20 and further emphasises the company’s commitment to supporting F-35 Lightning II partner countries.

The deal covers production of 34 unique F-35 Lightning II composite components, including door, panel, skin assembly and straps through 2019. The agreement further strengthens the partnership between Northrop Grumman and Terma A/S, which began in 2006. The first purchase order placed in 2007 during the Low Rate Initial Production 1 statement of work solidified the collaborative relationship between Northrop Grumman and Terma A/S, which has manufacturing responsibility for hardware on all three F-35 aircraft variants.

The signing has spurred discussions on how Northrop Grumman and Terma A/S can collaborate on affordability initiatives benefitting both companies and the F-35 program as a whole. The companies will explore technologies, set a path forward to achieve manufacturing efficiencies to meet the necessary quality requirements and work toward establishing Terma A/S as a premier supplier of composite parts.

Michelle Scarpella, vice president of the F-35 program for Northrop Grumman said;

The LTA with Terma A/S further strengthens our relationship with Denmark, an F-35 partner country, under this agreement, we will continue to work collaboratively with Terma, striving for the highest quality and driving efficiencies so we are able to provide the war fighter with the world’s most advanced strike fighter aircraft.

As a principal member of the Lockheed Martin-led F-35 industry team, Northrop Grumman performs a significant share of the work required to develop and produce the aircraft. In addition to producing the F-35 center fuselage, Northrop Grumman designed and produces the aircraft’s radar and other key avionics including electro-optical and communications subsystems; develops mission systems and mission-planning software; leads the team’s development of pilot and maintenance training system courseware; and manages the team’s use, support and maintenance of low-observable technologies. To date, the company has delivered every center fuselage on time and continues to meet its cost and schedule commitments. In 2011, the company delivered 22 center fuselages and is on track to deliver 32 center fuselages this year. It will make its 100th delivery in early 2013.

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3D printing technology has been around for about 20 years while additive manufacturing in its current form is about 5 years old. The difference between the two processes is 3D printing is being used for making non-functioning prototypes or models while additive manufacturing is being used to create usable parts for aerospace,energy, medical and other consumer products.

It’s expected that by 2015, the sale of additive manufacturing products and services worldwide is expected to grow to $3.7 billion from $1.71 billion in 2011, according to independent consultants Wohlers Associates.

There are a number of advantages to additive manufacturing over traditional manufacturing, such as injection molding or machining, Brian Rice, head of UDRI’s Multi-Scale Composites and Polymers Division said;

Cost savings is a major benefit, because there are no moulds or tooling needed to fabricate parts. With traditional manufacturing, every time you want to make even a slight change to the design of what you are making, you have to retool or make an entirely new mould, and that gets very expensive. With additive manufacturing, you can change your design as often as you want simply by changing the design on your computer file. You can’t make complex parts with injection molding,” Rice added. “And because you can print an entire part in one piece with additive manufacturing, instead of welding or attaching separate components together as in traditional manufacturing, the finished part is stronger

The University will work with program partners, Stratasys of Eden Prairie, Minn., and PolyOne and Rapid Prototype Plus Manufacturing Inc. (RP+M) of Avon Lake, Ohio, to develop aircraft-engine components for GE Aviation – who also collaborated on the program proposal – as well as parts and components for ATK Aerospace Structures, Boeing, Goodrich, Honda, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

UDRI will use part of the Third Frontier award to purchase a 3-D printer to demonstrate the technology, and UD’s School of Engineering, which recently purchase a similar machine, will provide hands-on opportunities for engineering students to become involved.

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The facility which was opened by Northrop Grumman executives today comprises a 4000 square metre hangar with $15 million of the latest state of the art manufacturing equipment and infrastructure along with a 1250 metre office, which now becomes Quickstep’s headquarters. Quickstep has substantial additional capacity for further expansion.

Quickstep will also be able to conduct research and development to licence its uniqe and patented composites manufacturing process from within the Bankstown facility and in cooperation with Quickstep’s Munich and Dayton Ohio R&D facilities.

Philippe Odouard, Managing Director of Quickstep, said that the new plant and the jobs that it creates demonstrated Quickstep’s successful relationship with its major aerospace customers, and has the capacity to become an integral part of the global supply chain for these high volume manufacturing industries.

This facility represents a quantum leap in Australian advanced composites manufacturing, strengthening our ability to deliver product and technologies to global industries that increasingly source competitively around the world. We are grateful to the NSW government that substantially participated in the funding of this development

The advanced materials company signed a long term deal in early 2011 with global aerospace corporations Lockheed Martin Corporation and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation intended to secure in excess of $700 million worth of potential contracts to manufacture components for the new multi-nation Joint Strike Fighter (F-35 JSF or JSF). The company started delivering the first parts in October 2011 and commenced serial production of flying parts in March 2012.

Quickstep is also hoping to secure agreements to manufacture more JSF parts before the end of 2012, increasing the variety of different parts being produced.

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