Active deployable structure for space instrumentation

Under the Innovation Triangle Initiative pilot phase, Alcatel Space ran a study with the French research institute INRIA Sophia Antipolis to develop an active deployable structure for space instrumentation. The main goal was to validate the concept of supporting an instrument with a very light but unstable deployable structure, the positioning errors being corrected by mechanical actuators and the optimal image quality being reached by active optics. Several technologies were examined to make the structure deployment reliable, cheap and compatible with space environment. A promising solution is the tape-spring mechanisms developed by IWF at the Technical University of Braunschweig and used in the six legs of a deployable hexapod as seen in the picture.