Considerations in the design and deployment of flexible booms for a solar sail

The majority of solar sailing missions utilise semi-rigid boom technology but this places limits on the possible size of the sail. Practical large sails may be constructed using flexible booms on a spinning satellite. The dynamics of the deployment of long flexible booms are investigated and limitin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAdvances in space research Vol. 67; no. 9; pp. 2716 - 2726
Main Authors Hibbert, Luke Thirkell, Jordaan, Hendrik Willem
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.05.2021
Subjects
Deployment
Flexible booms
Solar sailing
Spin stabilised
Deployment
Flexible booms
Spin stabilised
Solar sailing
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Summary:The majority of solar sailing missions utilise semi-rigid boom technology but this places limits on the possible size of the sail. Practical large sails may be constructed using flexible booms on a spinning satellite. The dynamics of the deployment of long flexible booms are investigated and limiting parameters discussed. Deployment strategies are proposed utilising active deployment and a means of passive deployment which requires no direct control of the deployment process. Practical insights into the design, testing and use of a flexible boom solar sail deployment mechanism is presented based on small scale experimental testing, discussing aspects such as boom winding and balanced deployment. Three novel deployment mechanism design concepts are developed; two passive mechanisms using rotational damping to retard the boom deployment and one active concept takes advantage of the forces produced by the spinning nature of the satellite to develop a compact deployment mechanism.
ISSN:0273-1177
1879-1948
DOI:10.1016/j.asr.2020.01.019