Gossamer Spacecraft: Recent Trends in Design, Analysis, Experimentation, and Control

摘要

AN emerging interest in the gossamer spacecraft community is the development and design of membrane optics that meet the stringent surface quality requirement of spaceborne telescopes. Appropriately, the development of an ultralarge, multifunctional membrane optic is being tackled head on by multiple disciplines. Strides are being made in material science, engineered actuators and sensors, and modeling techniques that can handle the unique characteristics that make gossamer structures so fascinating as well as challenging. Thorough reviews of gossamer spacecraft and related issues can be found in a few key sources. In 1995, Cassapakis and Thomas provided a historical perspective on the development of inflated satellite technology. Their paper covers topics such as design variables for building large, inflated craft; thoughts on new deployment and rigidization techniques; multiple applications for large, inflated craft (such as satellites, space targets, decoys, and antennae); and most importantly, lessons learned from their research and areas of research most deserving of further attention. In 2001, Jenkins et al. assembled a bound volume for AIAA that covers many facets of gossamer technology. The volume consists of 21 chapters devoted entirely to issues important to gossamer structures, like mechanics of membrane materials, fundamentals of membrane optics, modeling of deployment and rigidization methodologies, unique materials and their properties, and conceivable applications of ultralarge, ul-tralightweight craft.