On-Ground Rigidised, Inflatable CFRP Booms for Various Deployable Space Structures

Deployable structures are required to either enable orbit transfer of very large structure or to make the orbit transfer of medium and small size structures more affordable. Hereby, deployable booms are basic building blocks of such deployable structures. DLR is providing a concept for deployable hollow booms that utilize very thin CFRP material and which can be stowed by coiling. An inflation system is used to deploy the booms in a controllable manner. Thereby, the inflation acts as deployment driver but does not contribute to the deployed stiffness of the system. The presentation will introduces the concept of the CFRP booms, discusses the problems of their self deployment tendency and will visualize different mechanisms that are able to control the deployment. Tests under artificial zero-g environment have been conducted to verify the applicability of the control concepts. Hence, the presentation will also give insight in objectives, setup and the results of the experiment as well as a final evaluation of the concepts. Finally, an outlook on current and future projects that use the introduced booms or equivalent systems will be given