A meter-class tape spring deployable structure for microsatellite

Abstract

As the demand for microsatellites increases, deployable structures have been used to increase mission performances of microsatellites. Tape spring based deployable structures are lightweight and they can be constructed to have high packaging efficiency; they are suitable for microsatellites. This paper presents a meter-class deployable structure for microsatellite using tape spring. This structure is stowed in a volume of 1U CubeSat and after deployment it has an area of 1m2 with natural frequencies over 10 Hz. Modal analysis was performed to check the stiffness requirement after deployment. Deployment tests were performed to validate the deployment reliability, and the deployment accuracy.