By Calvin Biesecker
Canada’s MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) yesterday said it has agreed to acquire Alliance Spacesystems, a California-based space company with composite structures expertise and a leading position on robotic space subsystems, in a deal that expands its market channel in the United States for its space business.
Terms of the deal, which is expected to close this month, were not disclosed. Alliance Spacesystems has about 110 employees and MDA, whose space and related business accounts for about $367 million in sales, has about 200 employees in the United States working on space-related projects.
“This acquisition significantly enhances our U.S. presence and will provide a capable conduit to leverage and offer our world class space robotics and space surveillance solutions into the United States civilian and military aerospace markets,” Mag Iskander, executive vice president and general manager of MDA’s Information Systems business, said in a statement.
MDA supplies the robotics arms for NASA’s Space Shuttle missions and also designs and manufactures satellite antennas. The acquisition will allow MDA to leverage Alliance Spacesystems current customers in the United States and offer them more integrated solutions, Paul Cooper, MDA’s vice president of strategic development, told Defense Daily. He said stringent U.S. import restrictions on foreign suppliers of sensitive space-related systems makes it difficult for MDA to sell into the United States, which won’t be a problem once purchase is completed.
Combined, the two companies will be able to offer mission and system design expertise and the manufacturing of mechanical and robotic composite structures, Cooper said. The deal also gives Alliance Spacesystems “reachback” to MDA for intellectual property that it didn’t have before, he added.
Alliance Spacesystems is in the process of moving its composite structure manufacturing into a 68,000 square foot facility, which will give it more than twice the manufacturing space than it has currently, Rene Fradet, the company’s CEO, told Defense Daily.
Alliance Spacesystems supplies the robotic arms on the current Mars rovers used by NASA. In addition to supplying the robotic arm for the Shuttle, MDA also designs autonomous controls for spacecraft.