Taking IMAX into space – and back

Femap and NX Nastran helped accommodate the late addition of a 555-pound IMAX camera to a NASA shuttle payload

The IMAX camera work was done for Orbital Sciences Corp., a NASA contractor.“Our job is to get the camera up there in one piece and back, which involves protecting it from the extreme forces of lift-off and re-entry,” says Mike Pagnotta, the company’s president.

Pagnotta Engineering used Femap and NX Nastran for the project because Pagnotta knew from experience that it would allow the kind of fast conceptual design and trade studies needed for this type of work.