MultiSense: a Multiplex Structural Health Monitoring System for Softgood Architectures' Restraint Layer to Monitor Creep & Strain

Inflatable habitat structures are pivotal for future space exploration, offering increased livable space with reduced launch mass and costs. However, ensuring their long-term structural reliability, particularly against creep deformation and micrometeoroid impacts, is essential for the safety of space missions. Max Space addresses this challenge with MultiSense, an innovative structural health monitoring (SHM) system tailored for inflatable habitats. This system features embedded multiplex sensors, including Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG), piezoelectric materials, and Capacitive Strain Gauges (CSG), to provide real-time, accurate strain measurements and detect structural issues as they arise. Partnering with Thin Red Line Aerospace (TRLA), Max Space utilizes a unique braiding technique to incorporate these sensors into the habitat's cordage tendons, without integrating them during the braiding process. MultiSense is designed to endure initial deployment strains of 2 to 5% and sensitively detect creep strains from 0 to 0.5% in operational conditions. The research also considers cutting-edge materials like Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs), graphene, and spray-on superhydrophobic sensors, which could further advance SHM technology pending additional development. While MultiSense is specifically tailored for Max Space’s premier space expandable modules which utilize uni-directional softgood architecture, it is also poised to enhance the safety and reliability of other entities’ inflatable space systems that can adapt to their softgood design, such as basket-woven inflatables which ensures wide applicability in the market. The successful integration of MultiSense will enhance the monitoring and maintenance of inflatable habitats' structural integrity, aligning with NASA's objectives for secure and sustainable human spaceflight. This proposal promises to elevate confidence in inflatable habitats, facilitating their broader adoption for NASA's space exploration missions.