Development of Repeatable Storage Method for a Large Solar Sail

Abstract

This paper proposes a method to store a large solar-sail membrane while ensuring repeatability of its stored configuration. Large membranes used as a solar sail should be stored compactly to save the launch volume; in addition, their stored configuration should be sufficiently predictable in order to guarantee reliable deployment in orbit. However, it is difficult to store a large membrane compactly because of the finite thickness of the membrane. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed “bulging roll-up” method experimentally using 10m-size membranes, and evaluates the repeatability of its stored configuration quantitatively.