SBIR-STTR Award

DSS's innovative Elastic Deployable Composite Tubular Roll-Out Boom will provide revolutionary performance when compared to conventional state-of-the-art technologies, and will significantly enhance operations and capability for future NASA missions. The proposed Roll-Out Boom is strong, stiff, lightweight, thin, scalable, compactly-stowed, and fabricated from ultra-lightweight composite materials. The Roll-Out Boom can be used as a self-deploying antenna, electric field antenna, linear actuator, grapple arm, gravity gradient boom, camera support, inspection aid, or as an actuator/structure for deploying payloads, antennas, solar arrays, instrument benches, solar sails, and sunshades. The Roll-Out boom is a very simple concept that integrates an innovative deployment synchronization system to provide controlled, reliable and repeatable deployments, to produce deployments always in a predictable/known direction. The Roll-Out Boom provides exceptional structural performance in a small lightweight package, and is a direct replacement to current state-of-the-art systems. Boom sizes envisioned can be from 0.5-inch to 12-inches in diameter (or greater), with lengths from 1-m to 50-m long (or longer). The significance of the proposed technology and program will enable future NASA and non-NASA missions by providing a revolutionary and positive performance impact to the end-user, and allow for the rapid insertion of this mission-enabling technology for future applications.

Deployable Space Systems (DSS) has developed an affordable and ultra-lightweight elastically self-deployable Roll-Out Boom technology that provides affordability and mission-enabling performance features for current and future NASA missions. The Roll-Out Boom technology provides affordability and a significant performance increase in terms of extremely compact stowage volume, ultra-lightweight, broad scalability, high deployed frequency, high deployed strength, reliable/immediate/repeatable controlled deployment, high stiffness during deployment, good thermal/dimensional stability, highly conductive composite materials construction, space environmental survivability, and broad mission applicability. The Roll-Out Boom technology is applicable as an improved direct replacement to competing deployable structures, and is flexible in geometry, length, section, material, and construction to meet the most demanding mission requirements. The Roll-Out Boom is highly applicable as an enabling deployable structure for electric field sensors, antennas, gravity gradient booms, and magnetometer booms, or as a deployable structural platform for solar arrays, sunshades and/or other proprietary payloads. The technology innovation is applicable for practically all NASA and non-NASA missions as a direct replacement for classical state-of-the-practice deployable structure technologies.