Due to the severe low temperature environmental conditions occurring in some space missions, active or passive thermal control is required in order not to exceed the allowable operating or non-operating temperature limits of the actuators used. In order to relief this problem and to avoid heaters or passive thermal H/W as far as possible, the precision rotary actuator discussed here was especially designed to exceed the common temperature range for space actuators, down to values in the range of -160 Cel. A precision actuator suited to cover a wide range of potential space applications such as antenna pointing, solar array rotation, mirror adjustment or -deployment was designed, built and functionally tested. One of the main features of the actuator consisting of a rotary disc stepper motor combined with a Harmonic Drive gear stage is its good low temperature performance required in some applications like infrared satellites or experiments with long nonoperating times in cold space (e.g. interplanetary missions). The Low Temperature Gear Motor (LOG) provides a peak output torque in the 10 Nm-range, microstepping is possible, the mechanism was tested down to an operating temperature of -160 Cel which was limited by the test chamber available.
Development of a low-temperature gear motor (LOG)
Entwicklung eines Niedrigtemperatur Getriebemotors (LOG)
1993
4 Seiten, 7 Bilder, 1 Tabelle
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
technische Entwicklung , niedrige Temperatur , Getriebemotor , Weltraum , Leistungsabgabe , Raumfahrttechnik , thermische Eigenschaft , Drehbewegung , Stellantrieb , Solarenergie , harmonisches Getriebe , Infrarottechnik , Satellit , Umgebungseinfluss , Temperaturregelung , Antenne , Drehmoment , Tieftemperatur , Tieftemperaturverhalten