TRUSSELATOR - On-Orbit Fabrication of High Performance Support Structures for Solar Arrays

TUI proposes to develop and demonstrate a process for fabricating high-performance composite truss structures on-orbit and integrating them with thin film solar cell assemblies to enable the deployment of very large solar arrays with lower cost and increased power-per-mass than SOA array technologies. On-orbit fabrication enables order-of-magnitude improvements in packing efficiency compared to state of the art deployables technologies such as coilable booms, deployable masts, and inflatable structures, and also enables geometric optimizations to provide order-of-magnitude improvements in structural performance. The proposed effort will build upon an existing TRL-3 truss-fabrication mechanism design, called the "Trusselator", which adapts techniques used in 3D printing and automated fiber placement to fabricate arbitrarily-long composite trusses using compactly-wound spools of textile materials as a feedstock. The Phase I SBIR effort will evolve this design to enable fabrication of high-performance truss structures using space-worthy materials, and develop methods for integrating these truss structures with solar cell blankets and the necessary wiring. The Phase II effort will prepare an advanced prototype and mature it to TRL-5 through environmental testing in the lab, preparing it for orbital validation testing in follow-on efforts.

By improving both the stowed volume and mass required for support structures by an order of magni-tude, the Trusselator technology will enable NASA/HEOMD programs to deploy very large, scalable (30-300+kW) solar array systems at lower cost than SOA deployables technologies. The Trusselator technology will also enable improved performance and lower cost for a wide range of systems requiring large support structures, such as large solar sails, thermal shrouds, manned stations, and orbital propellant depots.

The Trusselator technology will enable DoD space programs and commercial space ventures to construct large, high-performance space structures for missions such as phased-array radar systems, sparse aper-ture radar for orbital debris detection, long-baseline geolocation, and commercial manned stations.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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