Manufacturing Facilities

Machine Shop

SDL's in-house machine shop

SDL's comprehensive, 6000 ft² machine shop is equipped with a 2-ton bridge crane and provides computer numeric control (CNC) machine capability, computer-aided precision machining (CAM), new state-of-the-art 3-dimensional milling machines and a crane-equipped indoor storage area. SDL carries a wide variety of materials in-house in order to meet immediate requests and tight schedules.

The SDL machine shop has two coordinate measuring machines (CMM) that are able to make precision measurements (<0.001") in 3-dimensions of mechanical and optical assemblies. One CMM is located near the machine shop to allow critical dimensions of machined parts to be verified. The other CMM is housed in a class-100 cleanroom. It is used to do the initial positioning and alignment of optical components in mechanical structures. It can be used to measure the accumulation of tolerance errors (stackup errors) for systems as they are being built up.

Composite Fabrication

SDL recently opened a composite manufacturing facility in conjunction with the Engineering and Technology Education Department at USU. This facility is capable of manufacturing composite parts to be used in flight programs. Development work is underway to use visco-elastic damping characteristics in composites at cryogenic temperatures.

Autoclave at the SDL/USU composite manufacturing facility

The composites lab includes the capabilities to lay up parts of both a cylindrical and a flat nature, and the capability to machine the additional tooling necessary for more complex parts should cylinder or plate designs not be feasible. The lab’s facilities include a curing oven, a temperature and pressure controlled autoclave, a clean area to lay-up composite parts to be used on programs that are contamination sensitive, and a finishing area where painting etc. can take place. Post-manufacturing capabilities include machining parts to meet specifications and a comprehensive testing facility for ultimate strengths, void content, shaker table, and thermal effects.