Fold-Deployment Concept and Prototype Design for Air-Inflatable Solar Sail
- Paper number
IAC-15,C2,IP,43,x29259
- Author
Ms. ZhengAi Cheng, Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China
- Coauthor
Dr. Yufei Liu, Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China
- Coauthor
Ms. Xiaoqi Huang, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), China
- Coauthor
Dr. Xinghua Zhang, Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China
- Year
2015
- Abstract
Solar sail is becoming a research highlight because it use light pressure as propulsion without any fuel. The folding and deploying technology, compact structure design, control mechanism and mechanical property are key technologies in 100-meter class solar sail. Special air-inflatable booms and L-shape sail folding method was designed. Aiming at this fold-deployment concept we customized the compact structure. To test and verified the technologies, an 8×8m principle prototype was developed. After manufacturing and assembling the prototype, a simple deploying test is done to verify the whole configuration. The result shows the prototype works good and the whole design can insure the sail deploy smoothy leading by the inflatable booms. The fold-deployment concept and support-package structure are verified to be feasible and valid. The prototype laid an important foundation of followed up mechanical and dynamic experiments.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-15,C2,IP,43,x29259.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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