Space Systems/loral, LLC

Jude Zils

Daniel Andrew Fluitt

Gordon C Wu

John Scott Higham

Elijah Zebadiah Gurnee

Douglas William Dietz

Carey Graham Hijmans

Russell L Beck

Michael Parker

A spacecraft includes an additive manufacturing (A/M) subsystem and one or both of a thermal control arrangement and a contamination control arrangement. The A/M subsystem includes an A/M tool, feedstock and a workpiece and is configured to additively manufacture the workpiece using material from the feedstock. The thermal control arrangement is operable, in an on-orbit space environment characterized by near vacuum pressure and near zero-g force, to maintain temperature of at least one of the A/M tool, the feedstock, and the workpiece within respective specified ranges. The contamination control arrangement is operable, in the on-orbit space environment, to control outgassing of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Additive manufacturing on-orbit

A laminated structure includes a front facesheet, a rear facesheet and a core arrangement disposed there between. The core arrangement includes a plurality of ribs, the ribs disposed so as to form walls defining a reticulated lattice of cells. The ribs have a thickness in a first direction and a height in a second direction approximately orthogonal to the facesheets and to the first direction that extends between the first adhesive joint and the second adhesive joint, the height being at least 100&#xd7; larger than the thickness. The core arrangement is bonded to the front facesheet by curing a first adhesive joint and bonded to the rear facesheet by curing a second adhesive joint, the first adhesive joint and the second adhesive joint being concurrently cured (co-cured) under pressure.

Laminate sandwich panel

A spacecraft includes a main body structure and a plurality of deployable modular reflector elements, the spacecraft being reconfigurable from a launch configuration to an on-orbit configuration. In the launch configuration, the modular reflector elements are disposed in a storage system that includes an arrangement for supporting the modular reflector elements with respect to dynamic launch loads. In the on-orbit configuration, in some implementations, an assembly of the plurality of modular reflector elements forms a large-aperture, offset fed, reflector, the reflector being coupled with a boom or yoke with the main body structure by way of a two or three axis positioning mechanism configured to steer the reflector with respect to the main body structure. In some implementations, in the on-orbit configuration, the plurality of modular reflector elements are assembled to form a large aperture reflective surface that is self-supporting.

Space based robotic assembly of a modular reflector

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Santa Cruz, CA, United States of America

Jude Zils