Deployment Characteristics of Rotationally Skew Fold Membrane for Spinning Solar Sail

Abstract

A rotationally skew fold membrane for the spinning solar sail is discussed to examine the deployment characteristics. The membrane is characterized by double corrugation fold and is advantageous in the complete folding and compact storage. Spinning experiments with scaled models are performed to investigate the geometrical and deployment characteristics. As the result of the spinning experiments, it is indicated that the rotationally skew fold membrane is completely deployed and there is a minimum spin rate to complately deploy. The fact that the spin-direction wrapped membrane realizes quick deployment is also indicated. To investigate the dynamic characteristics, a non-dimensional similarity parameter derived with the theoretical analysis for one-dimensional Z-fold membrane is expressed by the geometrical parameters as the radius, folding pitch, material properties and spin rate. The theoretical similarity parameter is applied to the results of the spinning experiments and indicates the effect of the folding pitch of the rotationally skew fold membrane. Also the similarity parameter based on the experimental results is introduced.