Inflatable Structures for Space Applications – Thales Alenia Space Italia Experience
- Paper number
IAC-08.C2.2.10
- Author
Dr. marco nebiolo, ThalesAlenia Space Italia S.p.A., Italy
- Year
2008
- Abstract
Thales Alenia Space Italia is presently working on the development of inflatable space structures for both manned and unmanned applications in the frame of dedicated studies funded by the Agencies. These structures will play a fundamental role in the next future exploration of Moon and Mars. As a matter of fact the manned structures will provide enhanced habitable volumes once deployed on orbit or the planets surface in spite of a high packaging at launch which could allow the use of currently available launching systems. Unmanned structures have as well a wide range of applications both in robotic exploration and in satellites appendages, solar arrays, etc. The above mentioned studies have been subdivided in 2 Phases: the former dedicated to materials identification and selection plus the development of the key technological processes involved in the inflatable items manufacturing and the latter focused on design, manufacturing and testing of the final demonstrators. The purpose is initially to validate the technology through ground demonstrations to be ready for the next future implementation on space flights. The Thales Alenia Space Italia activities on manned and unmanned inflatable structures are illustrated together with the main results achievements obtained on them. The main advantages related to these new generation structures are as well underlined in this paper.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)