The Gossamer-1 project (gossamer, meaning thin and light) aims to develop and create a space-qualified technology for the deployment of ultra-lightweight, large film structures in space. Key technologies include lightweight film and deployment technologies, which can be folded and stowed into a small enough space suitable for a rocket launch. The construction must be robust enough to endure the extreme pressures experienced during launch, such as vibration and fast decompression, and also to be deployable in space in a reliable and safe manner as a large, flat and stretched film surface.
These structures can be used for a variety of applications. For this particular project, development will focus on the following three areas:
All subsystems of a spacecraft are being developed at the Institute of Space Systems in what will be a cross-departmental collaboration for this project, which was initially designed as a free flyer. The technical focus of the Department of Mechanical and Thermal Systems is in the design, production, stowage, deployment and ageing of membrane technologies, as well as the application of thin-layer photovoltaics, both in the design of the mechanisms and in the qualification of all components and the system under space conditions. The full coordination of system engineering also falls in the remit of the Department.
Image: Artistic impressions of the five by five metre Gossamer-1 demonstrator with the deployment units still attached to the mastheads.