Design and Performance of the Telescopic Tubular Mast.

摘要

The Telescopic Tubular Mast (TTM) has been under development at Astro Aerospace Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems for a number of years and has found several applications including deployment of the Large Sunshield on the James Webb Space Telescope. The TTM is composed of a number of large diameter tubes that are deployed and retracted using a Storable Tubular Extendable Mechanism (STEM). In order to study and evaluate the feasibility of utilizing the TTM concept for long boom applications a special design case (34.4-m long) was selected in 2005, which later was built and tested. This paper describes the design and analysis of this design case as well as testing performed. Special attention is given to the deployed stiffness and frequencies, which is a key requirement for space applications. Also, stabilization features required for the deployment are discussed and finally a feedback control system to drive the STEM deployer during the deployment is selected and the difficulties of controlling the system are discussed.