In - ! Step Inflatable Antenna Description

Large size space deployable antenna structures are needed for a variety of applications. Current resources limitations within the antenna user community have resulted in the need for low cost, light weight and mechanically reliable space structures. An inflatable deployable antenna concept, under development at L’Garde has such great potential for satieing these requirements; it was selected for a NASA sponsored InSpace Technology Experiment Program (IN-STEP) flight experiment. The objectives of the experiment are to verify low cost and light weight by building a 14 meter-diameter reflector antenna structure and demonstrate deployment reliability and reflector surface precision in a realistic operational environment. The approach will utilize the Space Transportation System (STS) launched recoverable Spartan spacecraft as the experiment carrier. .The basic experiment subsystems and their functions include (a) the inflatable structure that consists of: a thin membrane reflector structure and clear canopy structure that are joined at their perimeter to form a lenticular structure; a torus structure that supports the lenticular structure and; three strut structures that interface the torus with the experiment bus structure, (b) the canister structure that interfaces the experiment with the Spartan and is the load carrying structure for all of the subsystems, (c) the surface measurement system that remotely characterizes the reflector precision as a function of sun angle and internal pressure, (d) the inflation system that senses and controls the gas flow for deployment and pressurization and (e) the electronics Copyright @ 1995 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved. that control power, functional sequences and data recording. This paper describes the fmal hardware developed for the experiment. References in the paper identify publications covering the experiment justification and technical approach.