A NEW DESIGN VARIANT OF THE LARGE DEPLOYABLE SPACE REFLECTOR

Though theoretical, design and experimental studies connected with the creation of large deployable antenna reflectors have already been carried out for quite a long time, this area still remains of lively interest and has good application prospects. An example is the program of the European Space Agency (ESA) on the creation of a qualified variant of a 15 m deployable space offset reflector. It should be said that by the time the ESA adopted a decision on the implementation of this program, a deployable space reflector 7 m in diameter had already been created in Georgia and, in 1999, this space reflector was successfully tested aboard the orbital station “Mir” according to the joint Georgian-Russian program (see Figure 1). The Georgian Institute for Space Constructions continues developing new design principles for large space deployable systems (Medzmariashvili, E. (1995)). In the paper we describe the invention of an absolutely new design of a space antenna for symmetric and nonsymmetric radio telescopes, which has been developed by the team of Georgian designers headed by Professor E. Medzmariashvili (Medzmariashvili, E. (2001)). The novelty consists in that new engineering and technological effects we obtained by synthesis of ring-shaped and rib-umbrella type systems. In particular, the central hinge that connects the main levers of the pantograph is arranged asymmetrically. As a result of this asymmetric arrangement, during deployment the consoles (folded along the package longitudinal axis and connecting the adjacent sections) move in radial directions from the center to the periphery and, simultaneously, deploy in an umbrella-like manner. The the deployment process analysis is given in section 2.2. Figure 1. Deployable space reflector.