We just lately reported on the profitable deployment of the photo voltaic sail of the Superior Composite Photo voltaic Sail System (ACS3) expertise demonstration mission. That vast achievement advances one of the necessary applied sciences obtainable to CubeSats – a special type of propulsion. However getting there wasn’t straightforward, and again in Might, a workforce of engineers from NASA’s Langley Analysis Middle who labored on ACS3 printed a paper detailing the trials and tribulations they went by to arrange the mission for prime time. Let’s check out what they discovered.
ACS3 was solely a expertise demonstration mission—it had no science payload to cope with. And that’s a superb factor, too, as a result of becoming the photo voltaic sail into the housing of a CubeSat was a problem even with none scientific gear.
The expertise demonstrated was the deployable growth system that created an 81 sq. meter floor of photo voltaic sail to catch the photon particles used to propel the mission ahead. That sounds a lot simpler than it was, as is clear from the descriptions of the issues the workforce needed to overcome.
Ultimately, the mission launched in a 12U CubeSat configuration, weighing about 16 kg (36 lbs) in whole mass. Nonetheless, the mission was initially prototyped to suit right into a 6U configuration—about half the scale and weight of the 12U. With the quantity of deployable materials and the required motors to drive their deployment, the engineers couldn’t match different important elements, like response wheels, to regular the CubeSat’s orientation.
Nonetheless, the 12U design “got here with a number of technical challenges,” in accordance with the paper. One was whether or not to make use of 4 impartial spools of fabric, every tied to an impartial growth or one central hub spool with all 4 booms coiled round a central axis. As was the case with virtually all engineering tasks, the workforce’s resolution wasn’t primarily based on what was technically finest. They determined to make use of the 4 impartial spools since that required the least modification from the unique 6U design.
One other lesson described within the paper was the timing of the launch coordination. Each the “dispenser” (i.e., the system that sends the CubeSats out into house after a profitable launch) and the launch contract weren’t submitted till ACS3 was already in testing. By then, modifications had been made to the design, which made it troublesome to combine into an current dispenser, because the workforce had modified the sides of the satellite tv for pc to suit the sails higher. However doing so tousled one of many important touchpoints for traditional CubeSat dispensers.
To make issues worse, with no identified launch date and inclination, the workforce needed to overengineer most of the CubeSat methods. They needed to meet a a lot wider vary of temperatures and shock/vibration environments. However once they lastly received their launch date of April twenty third on an Electron rocket from New Zealand, the system had been engineered for an surroundings a lot harsher than what it was subjected to, inflicting elevated price and delays within the supply.
To satisfy these challenges, the workforce took the strategy of quickly prototyping, together with growing a number of completely different 3D-printed prototypes earlier than lastly making the complete system out of metallic. At one level, a administration resolution was made to not substitute any insert fasteners that had been by no means supposed for use on the ultimate flight however ended up being included anyway due to the price of changing them.
Once more, these sorts of administration choices are commonplace to anybody concerned in an engineering mission. Nonetheless, it’s good to see that, on this case, it didn’t have an effect on the mission’s general success. Regardless of some indications that it could be both tumbling or wobbling, ACS3 undoubtedly achieved its major goal of deploying its photo voltaic sail. So, in any case the trouble and compromises that the workforce at Langley and elsewhere at NASA put into it, now you simply have to search for into the evening sky, and also you may see the fruits of their labor streaking throughout it.
Study Extra:
Schneider et al. – Superior Composite Photo voltaic Sail System (ACS3): Mechanisms and Classes Discovered from a CubeSat Photo voltaic Sail Deployer
UT – NASA’s New Photo voltaic Sail Extends Its Booms and Units Sail
UT – NASA’s Subsequent Photo voltaic Sail is About to Go to Area
UT – NASA’s Placing its Photo voltaic Sail Via its Paces
Lead Picture:
CAD picture of the ACS3 spacecraft.
Credit score – Schneider et al
