Disclosed is a made-in-space telescope (52a) comprising primary mirror made by spinning liquid precursor in two orthogonal axes to form a paraboloid surface and subsequently allowing or causing it to solidify. Several mirror material variants are disclosed. Depending on mirror material used, it can be subsequently coated with reflecting coating.Extended/deployed (120a) or formed (130) boom assists in controlling the spin of the telescope for mirror forming.Several telescope embodiments based on the boom design are disclosed.Boom variants include 3-D printed/extruded (130), corrugated (120), telescopic (190a), coiled (192a), folded (193c), taut cable (195a), stiffened cable ((197), and compound boom made with anisotropically pliable elements (198).Several system elements such as primary mirror support (42a), supporting struts (160) and (162), and several boom variants (120), (140), (192a) are made with shape memory materials and deploy from their stowed configurations upon being heated.Heat pipe based implementations are additionally disclosed for heat-activated shape memory system elements.
MADE-IN-SPACE TELESCOPES
07.11.2024
Patent
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
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