TY - JOUR
T1 - Deployment experiment for ultralarge solar sail system (ultrasail)
AU - Woo, Byoungsam
AU - Ertmer, Kevin M.
AU - Coverstone, Victoria L.
AU - Burton, Rodney L.
AU - Benavides, Gabriel F.
AU - Carrol, David L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by NASA contract number NNM04 AB18C. We wish to thank the In-Space Propulsion Technology Program technical monitors Joseph Bonometti and John Dankanich. Additionally, we would like to thank Kent Elam, head of Aerospace Engineering machine shop, Tim Prunkard, head of the Civil Engineering machine shop, and Greg Farmer and Mark Johnson of NeXolve Corporation for their support on the program.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - UltraSail is a next-generation high-payoff system with very large (kilometers-squared class) solar sails enabling high payload mass fractions for high Delta-V. One of the primary innovations is the near elimination of sail supporting structures by attaching each blade tip to a formation-flying tip satellite. To design the deployment of kilometers-long blades by centrifugal force provided by tip satellites, the peel force of the blade material must be known. In this research, an experiment to determine the force necessary to deploy a stowed film in a vacuum was designed, fabricated, and operated for various CP-1 polyimide film samples, including uncoated, aluminum-coated, and uncoated but conductive film. Results for uncoated film samples were heavily dependent on vacuum levels, with very high forces observed at low pressures due to electrostatic charge buildup. However, for the coated film and conductive film samples, the types most likely to be used on an UltraSail mission, preliminary results show that the peel forces are negligibly small. This small peel force is critical for the successful, simple, and efficient deployment f the UltraSail system. A potential problem associated with trapped air between film layers was identified by the experiment, and a future winding scheme will guard against this issue.
AB - UltraSail is a next-generation high-payoff system with very large (kilometers-squared class) solar sails enabling high payload mass fractions for high Delta-V. One of the primary innovations is the near elimination of sail supporting structures by attaching each blade tip to a formation-flying tip satellite. To design the deployment of kilometers-long blades by centrifugal force provided by tip satellites, the peel force of the blade material must be known. In this research, an experiment to determine the force necessary to deploy a stowed film in a vacuum was designed, fabricated, and operated for various CP-1 polyimide film samples, including uncoated, aluminum-coated, and uncoated but conductive film. Results for uncoated film samples were heavily dependent on vacuum levels, with very high forces observed at low pressures due to electrostatic charge buildup. However, for the coated film and conductive film samples, the types most likely to be used on an UltraSail mission, preliminary results show that the peel forces are negligibly small. This small peel force is critical for the successful, simple, and efficient deployment f the UltraSail system. A potential problem associated with trapped air between film layers was identified by the experiment, and a future winding scheme will guard against this issue.
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U2 - 10.2514/1.51519
DO - 10.2514/1.51519
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80053537790
VL - 48
SP - 874
EP - 880
JO - Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets
JF - Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets
SN - 0022-4650
IS - 5
ER -