Space structures encounter various special environments in space. One of these environments is severe thermal condition. Difference of temperature of space structures during day-time and night-time is about 200 kelvin. These severe thermal conditions cause thermal deformation of the structures. In fact, we observed the signal level of radio wave from the LDR (Large Deployable Reflector) of the ETS-VIII (Engineering Test Satellite -VIII) changing during the Earth eclipse. This phenomenon may be caused by thermal deformation of the LDR. This thermal deformation is a key issue to maintain the accuracy of communication beams reflected by the space antenna. Analysis of thermal deformation of the LDR is carried out, and a new suppression scheme for thermal deformation is proposed in this paper.

Temperature of the LDR during Earth eclipse 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Signal level of radio wave from the LDR during Earth eclipse

Movement of communication beam during Earth eclipse 　　　　　Movement of communication beam reflected by the LDR

Related papers (Journals):

D. Isobe and M. Morishita: Debris Impact Analysis of Large-Scale Space Structures by Using ASI-FEM, Transactions of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Series A, Vol.64, No.627, (1998), pp.2726-2733, in Japanese. DOI: 10.1299/kikaia.64.2726

M. Usui, K. Wakita, K. Kondo, L. T. T. Thanh, Y. Matsui and D. Isobe: Suppression of Thermal Deformation of the Large Deployable Reflector, Transactions of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Series C, Vol. 77, No. 777, (2011), pp.2107-2119, in Japanese. DOI: 10.1299/kikaic.77.2107

D. Isobe and M. Morishita: Impact Analysis of Space Structure due to Collision with Hypervelocity Space Debris by Using ASI-FEM, Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Engineering Science (ICCES'98) -Modeling and Simulation Based Engineering-, Vol.2, (1998), pp.1114-1119, Atlanta, USA. abstract

Active Control of Deformation and Vibration of Large-Scale Space Structures