Finland’s first satellite is protected by Beneq ALD

Beneq reports that about entering space with their ALD technology. Aalto-1 is a student satellite project, created by an interdisciplinary co-operation network within Aalto University, with the satellite's payloads developed in Technical Research Centre of Finland VTT, Helsinki University, Turku University and Finnish Meteorological Institute FMI. The team has members from five different departments of Aalto University. Additionally, a consortium of Finnish universities and space industry has been formed to support the satellite project, and international relations with several foreign universities have been created.

The historic rocket launch by the company SpaceX will carry the satellite into space later in spring 2016. In addition to Aalto-1, the rocket will bring a record number of nanosatellites into orbit at 600km.(http://www.aalto.fi/en/current/news/2016-03-02/)

On the satellite, there are areas that are not covered by solar cells or any other equipment, which still need protection. The solution is a two-layer coating, where the aluminium surfaces have first been anodized and then coated in the Beneq factory with indium tin oxide (ITO).

See full soory at the Beneq Blog: http://www.beneq.com/blog/201603/thin-film-coating-is-rocket-science.html