Spring-out sensor boom is featherweight for cube sats

“It’s difficult to get commercial electronics integrated into these super thin structures,” said Illinois professor Xin Ning, who added that anything the team made had to be “able to withstand the harsh environment of space”.

Two years ago, Ning piqued the of NASA when he presented a paper on multi-functional space structures at a conference.

“It got the attention of Juan Fernandez from Langley Research Center,” said Ning. “He was making a boom structure for a Virginia Tech CubeSat project and saw the opportunity to collaborate.

The final boom, made at Langley, is a three-ply carbon fiber and epoxy composite 156μm thick that rolls up and springs out like the tape in a tape measure.

Components were needed at its end to help ensure that it has deployed properly.

To start with, power and data lines were required along the entire 1m length.

“Eventually, we went with thin commercial wires coated with insulation and it worked,” Ning said. “I think we were over-thinking it at the beginning. We tried more difficult, fancier approaches, but they failed. This was a simple and reliable solution using off-the-shelf, readily available wires.”

A motion sensor, temperature sensor and blue LED were deemed necessary at tip of the boom to monitor deployment and subsequent boom vibration, and help the satellite’s camera check position. These needed to rolled-up, sprung out, and then survive space.

The project has mostly reached its goal and, along the way, produced a pool of expertise and data for future designs.

A few things are remain on the to-do list before the proposed launch date for the Virginia Tech 3U CubeSat in 2025.

“We are working on making the flexible electronics more durable in space – to protect the electronics so it will be operational longer,” said Ning.

‘Multifunctional bistable ultrathin composite booms with flexible electronics‘ is a paper describing the research, published in Extreme Mechanics Letters.

Photo: The boom extended, carrying motion and temperature sensors, and an LED.