It was an eventful Q1 for the team at TAI. Not only were we in the midst of the busiest quarter in company history, but we've had multiple space flight programs launch with our thermal straps onboard. Perhaps most exciting for our team, were the launch of Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket, and Turion Space's Droid.002 spacecraft (using a combined total of dozens of our highly efficient PyroFlex® graphite sheet straps). While other programs have launched with our PyroFlex® products, the launches by Blue Origin and Turion Space (onboard SpaceX's Transporter-13) now mark the 2nd and 3rd programs with space flight heritage that we can publicly disclose (and celebrate)!
TAI and New Glenn
TAI's engineering team worked with engineers at Blue Origin since 2023 to design and manufacture hundreds of PyroFlex® thermal straps used to cool the Line Replaceable Units (LRU's) on New Glenn. These straps were the ideal solution, beating out copper, aluminum, graphite fiber, and competing product offerings, due to the high conductance to low mass requirements for this particular area of the rocket. The PyroFlex® straps used ranged in length from 150-330mm, and featured our next generation of Pyrolytic Graphite Film (and assembly methods), netting a 20% improvement over previous iterations of graphite sheet-based straps.
New Glenn is Blue Origin's heavy lift, reusable rocket (its first orbital rocket), and its first stage is designed to last 25 flights (while also using cleaner burning fuel and at less cost than competing rockets). The rocket itself is nearly 322 feet (98 meters) tall and can send roughly 50 tons (45 metric tons) to low Earth orbit.
New Glenn launched successfully on January 16, 2025, from Cape Canaveral.
Pictured (top): PyroFlex® straps used on New Glenn.
Pictured (upper right): New Glenn on launch pad (Photo credit: Blue Origin).
TAI and Turion Space's DROID.002
Turion Space builds and operates their DROID series of spacecraft, designed to detect and catalog orbital debris and other spacecraft/satellites, in an effort to reduce the risks they pose to satellites and other spacecraft. In the second phase of their mission, Turion's DROID spacecraft will eventually "push" large space debris like spent rocket stages and non-operational satellites, out of LEO and GEO...essentially acting as the "clean-up crew" for space.
TAI worked with Turion to provide a set of our Copper Thermal Strap (CuTS®) products for DROID.001 (which launched in June of 2023), but when DROID.002 needed a high level of thermal performance combined with a low mass (over a relatively long strap), and flexibility/low stiffness was critical, our PyroFlex® products provided the ideal solution.
DROID.002 launched on SpaceX's Transporter-13 on March 15, 2025, along with dozens of other commercial and defense/intelligence spacecraft and cubesats.
Pictured: 2 of the straps used on DROID.002.
Stay tuned for more space flight program and product news, and don't forget to download your copies of our 2025 Thermal Strap Catalogs, today! TAI released the latest editions of our CuTS®, GFTS®, and PyroFlex® Catalogs in the last few weeks, introducing new models, helpful tips & FAQ, and more.