Quasistatic Release Mechanism

Heliospace has developed a unique release mechanism that exports near-zero shock during actuation and can be utilized for the purposes of deploying state of the art observatory systems and subsystems. Furthermore, the proposed release mechanism is designed to be field resettable which enables a customer to avoid expensive and time consuming off site reset and refurbish apparent with non-field resettable devices. This capability enables the devices to avoid costly and risk inducing test-as-you-fly waivers that are typically required with one shot release mechanisms and improves the flow of Integration and Test phases of a project. The release device can be scaled to meet needs from small scale CubeSat applications all the way up to flag ship space telescopes. The proposed release device has the potential to provide a unique capability by enabling the design and deployment of precision hardware for the entirety of the optical chain. It diversifies the current release mechanism market that is dominated domestically by two manufactures. Finally. it increases the number of options available to engineers to achieve large- and small-scale deployable structures not achievable with current technologies.