Large Deployable Membrane Structures

Kurzfassung

In the past years, miscellaneous techniques to stow and deploy large structures have been developed. Reasons for this trend are on the one hand the increasing interests on such large structures in space and on the other hand economical reasons (e.g. launching and supporting costs). The field of functions of such a deployable structure is extremely wide. So the most solar arrays and some antennas (Mars Express, Spartan 207) are constructed deployable. This paper shall prove the possibilities of deploying planar, large membrane surfaces for different applications. Therefore, the base line concept of a thin membrane, supported by a deployable frame, was chosen. Due to this concept, various options for the deployment will be compared and assessed. Furthermore, a short outlook on membrane design and manufacturing is given.