MIRRORS: Monolithic Isogrid Reflectors for Radio-to-Optical Remote Sensing

The innovation addressed in this proposal is a structural architecture for large, stiff, deployable reflectors. This system combines the deployability and high specific stiffness of flexible composite shell elements with the mass-efficiency of fractal isogrids. This combination of technologies simultaneously solves the three primary issues facing gossamer reflectors: surface precision, stiffness, and deployability. Most lightweight mirror systems use a face sheet to provide bending stiffness at the local scale, and a rigid backing structure to provide stiffness at the global scale. MIRRORS uses the concept of the fractal isogrid to provide bending stiffness at every scale. In addition to the improved dynamic stability, the fractal network also supports the reflecting surface at a high enough spatial frequency that the surface precision and shape control is vastly improved over that of tension based, membrane reflectors. Furthermore, the proposed concept, known as Monolithic Isogrid Reflectors for Radio-to-Optical Remote Sensing (MIRRORS), can be applied to a variety of reflector and deployment architectures, and is therefore applicable to a broad range of missions. (P-040182)