SPACECRAFT STRUCTURES

1- Introduction and key considerations for spacecraft structures and

mechanisms
2- Process of developing spacecraft structures and mechanisms
3- Sources of structural loading, ground and space environment effects
4- Structural analysis basics we will discuss some in this course and
you will learn more in other courses such as AE 462, AE 463, AE
464 etc.
5- Design of structures, types of structures and forms of construction, and
materials (we will not discuss since you learn about different material
forms in other courses)
6- Spacecraft mechanisms

1. INTRODUCTION AND KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR

SPACECRAFT STRUCTURES AND MECHANISMS
Emphasis will be on the cost-effective development of spacecraft
structures and mechanisms
Development:
Process that begins with defining the requirements and ends with delivering
a product suitable for launch and operation
Design:
Developing requirements, identifying options, doing analyses and trade
studies, defining a product in detail
Cost-Effective:
Getting high performance, reliability and confidence for money considering
the knowns and uncertainities

SPACECRAFT
Space segment of a space mission such as a functional satellite
Information given here also applies to
Launch vehicles
Space transfer vehicles
Re-entry vehicles
Size of spacecraft
- Medium-Large:

More analysis and tests are required (product variations are easier to control
for larger structures,testing is not easy, test failures affect program)

- Small-compact (small satellite):

Less analysis can be performed and we can rely on more environmental
tests to show the structure will satify the requirements
(tiny circuit board; for small structures it is not easy to predict and assess
structural loading)

STRUCTURE OF A SPACECRAFT

Structures support key components in desirable locations considering, thermal

control, fields of view for antennas and sensors, etc.

Stowed configuration must fit within the launch vehicless payload envelope

Structure protect the spacecraft components from dynamic environment during:

ground operations, launch, deployment, mission operations

Structural vibration must not interfere with the launch vehicles control system

Spacecrafts vibration in its deployed configuration must not interfere with its own
control system

Materials used must survive ground, launch and on-orbit environments

(time varying applied forces, pressure, humidity, radiation, contamination,
thermal cycling etc.)

TYPICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SPACECRAFT STRUCTURES

STRENGTH: Amount of load a structure can carry without rupturing

STRUCTURAL LIFE: Material fatigue and creep considerations

STRUCTURAL RESPONSE: Magnitude and duration of vibration in

response to external loads

NATURAL FREQUENCY: Stowed configuration, on-orbit configuration

STIFFNESS: Allocated to substructures to achieve the required natural frequency

for a larger assembly or to provide the necessary positional stability
for a sensor or antenna

DAMPING: Dissipation of energy during vibration.

MASS PROPERTIES: Mass, mass moments, products of inertia, center of mass

- Imposed by the launch vehicle and allocated to all subsystems
- Allocated to substructures to achieve the required natural
frequency for a larger assembly

DYNAMIC ENVELOPE: Imposed to avoid contact between two parts of the

spacecraft under loads

POSITIONAL STABILITY: The ability to maintain location or orientation within

a certain range.
Concerns: thermo-elastic distortions, material yielding, shifting of mechanical
joints. Derived to ensure critical instruments such as antennas, sensors
will find their targets

MECHANICAL INTERFACE:

The set of features such as flatness and locations of bolt holes that define how
structures and components attach.
Derived from designs of mating structures to ensure fit and avoid excessive
deformations and loads

CATEGORIES OF STRUCTURES

PRIMARY STRUCTURES:

Body structure, Launch vehicle adapter

- Major load path between spacecrafts components and launch vehicle

- Usually designed for stiffness or natural frequency, and to survive the steady state
accelerations and transient loading during launch

SECONDARY STRUCTURES: Appendage booms, support trusses, platforms,

solar panels, antenna dishes
- On-orbit thermal cycling, loads due to mission operations, acoustic pressure
during launch can be more severe during launch

TERTIARY STRUCTURES:

Brackets, electronic boxes (smallest structures)

- High frequency base driven vibration causes the most severe loading
Fatigue, stiffness and positional stability are the main driving requirements

3. SOURCES OF STRUCTURAL LOADING

A spacecrafts structures on orbit performance such as pointing accuracy

and positional stability can be important but environments;
On Earth
During launch
In space
typically derive the designs of most structures

Structures must not only survive these environments but also protect the
spacecrafts non-structural components and allow them to function

The materials we select non-structural as well as structural must not

degrade too much before and during mission

Ground testing is supposed to envelop mission environments with margin.

Thus, to become confident that testing will be successful we must define
test environments early and design our structures and mechanisms to
withstand them.

In this section we will describe the types of environments a spacecraft may

experience and concentrate on the sources of structural loading

Sources of structural loading

- Static loadings: constant loads
- Dynamic loads: loads that vary with time

Loads can be external and self-contained

- Static, external loads:

* Weight of the supported components (gravity and steady
acceleration)
- Static, self-contained loads
* pressure of stored propellant
* mechanical preloads (springs, bolts etc.)
* thermoelastic loads ( those generated by temperature changes)
- Dynamic, external loads
* engine thrusts
* sound pressure
* gusts of wind during launch
* pulsed thrust to reposition a spacecraft on-orbit etc.

- Dynamic, self-contained loads:

* Mass loading of a vibrating satellite during environmental testing or
in space, after the force that caused the excitation is removed

Every event in the life of a spacecraft introduces structural loads:

- Manufacturing
- Ground handling
- Testing
- Transportation
- Air transportation
- Pre-launch preparations
- Launch
- Payload (spacecraft) separation
- On-orbit operations
- Landing (as applicable)

Note:
- Launch vehicle terminology: payload means entire spacecraft
- To a spacecraft: payload is the instrument or group of components that
satisfies mission objectives
Launch generates the highest loads for most spacecraft structures; but any
other event may be critical for parts of the structure
In many cases we can not control the loads; we have to estimate them and
design the structure to withstand them
In this section load causing events will be addressed, and start with a
relatively detailed look at launch which presents the most complex load
causing environment

LAUNCH

Launch starts when the booster engines ignite and ends with the separation
of the propulsion device that puts the spacecraft in its final orbit

A launch vehicle consists of stages shown in the following figure

(configuration of a Delta II Launch vehicle)

Delta II Launch Vehicle

LAUNCH

When the propellant from one stage is used up, the structure, storage tank,
and engine of that stage separates from the launch vehicle, and engines of
the next stage ignite.

This approach maintains efficiency by getting rid of unnecessary mass

The Space shuttle has two stages:

- The solid rocket boosters separate early
- The orbiter and external tank continue on at the second stage

The following figure shows axial acceleration for an Ariane launch vehicle
versus time

Axial Acceleration Profile For Ariane Launch Vehicle

LAUNCH
Maximum Air Loads

As the vehicle approaches and passes through the speed of sound, shock
waves form changing the aerodynamic pressures that act on the vehicle

These loads combine with

- static air pressure
- steady winds
- wind shears and gusts
- forces applied to stabilize and steer the booster

A launch vehicle bends as a beam under air loads

Payload may also carry some of this bending loads if it is attached to both
booster core structure and payload fairing

LAUNCH
Maximum Air Loads

Gusts and buffeting cause low frequency bending vibration in the

booster/payload system generating lateral inertia loading

Variations in the sources of load may require that we evaluate several time
periods to determine which cases are critical for structural design

Flight conditions that are most significant for the spacecraft may be
different from those critical for the launch vehicle

LAUNCH
Staging Events

Any time a rocket engine ignites or shuts down, the launch vehicle and
payload experience a transient force

Axial acceleration during any stage builds as propellant is used up

The space shuttle throttles its engines to limit longitudinal acceleration to

3gs but this is not typical for expendable vehicles

For some boosters, the slowly increasing axial acceleration before

shutdown becomes so high that it alone can be a design driver

Shutdown and start-up of stages usually cause high transient loads.

Therefore, these operations have to be negotiated with the payload
engineers and launch vehicle supplier

LAUNCH
Staging Events

Upper stages can be designed to start and stop several times as needed to
get the spacecraft to a final orbit

At each successive engine start or shutdown, the mass is different so we

may have to predict loads for several configurations

Once a stage is no longer used it separates from the launch vehicle;

pyrotechnic devices fire to release the structural attachment

Often the pyro shock is the main concern with the separation event.
Although shock seldom affects large structures it can damage electronics
and can cause electro-mechanical devices to actuate

LAUNCH
Payload Fairing Separation

Once a launch vehicle obtains enough altitude, the atmosphere becomes

sparse enough so the payload no longer needs protection from aerodynamic
forces and thermal effects

Therefore, fairings which are built in longitudinal segments separate with

pyrotechnic devices. Thus, shock is a potential concern

Example:
Titan IV consists of three 120 degree segments that separate radially,
driven by bellows that rapidly expand when explosive devices ignite

LAUNCH
Launch Load Factors for Preliminary Design

In the preliminary design of a spacecrafts primary structure, we typically

use load factors to represent the total loading environment at launch

The load factors of several launch vehicles are taken from the user
guide of these vehicles

The following table shows load factors for several launch vehicles

Load factors and frequency requirements used in Preliminary Design

LAUNCH
Launch Load Factors for Preliminary Design
The user guides caution that such load factors apply only if the spacecrafts
fundamental axial and lateral frequencies are above the values shown on
the table
Most launch vehicles also have limits for the payloads lowest natural
frequency to ensure its dynamic characteristics dont adversely affect the
boosters control system
Limitations of the load factors
- They cover only steady-state accelerations, not the effects of acoustics,
random vibration and shock
- The load factors are not always high enough to envelope the effects of
transients on secondary and tertiary structures that have modes of
vibration below about 35-50 Hz

LAUNCH
Launch Load Factors for Preliminary Design
- Even for primary structures load factors may not be adequate, however
they are useful for early design

Once we have reduced our design options for primary and secondary
structures based on these loads we can start predicting loads to be used in
detailed design

SPACE ENVIRONMENTS
Classification of Earth Orbits

In this section we will describe the space environments, explain how they
vary with altitude, and discuss the challenges they present for spacecraft
structural design

Near Earth space environment consists of

- Vacuum
- Thermal radiation
- Charged particle radiation (electrons, protons, ions)
- Neutral atomic and molecular particles
- Micrometeoroids and debris
- Magnetic fields
- Gravitational fields

First five of them are of most concern for material selection and structural
design

During mission planning, we predict the intensity of each type of

environment for the selected orbit.

Public-domain computer programs

These programs calculate environm ental data for given orbital parameters

Vacuum
The following curve show the variation of pressure with altitude

Atmospheric pressure on Earth is 760 torr

Vacuum

Most vacuum chambers used for testing operate in the range 10 -3-10-8 torr

Vacuum levels at high orbital altitudes far exceed anything that can be
achieved on Earth

At the low atmospheric pressures encountered in space, certain materials

and lubricants breakdown and convert into a gas; this process is called
outgassing

Example:
Materials, such as magnesium, outgas at such a high rate in the vacuum of
space as not to be of any value for structural use

Vacuum

For spacecraft, outgassing has two undesirable effects:

It can cause certain key material properties to degrade
Gaseous emissions can condense on critical surfaces such as lenses,
mirrors, sensors etc.
Condensation on thermal coatings may also affect spacecrafts thermal
balance

Outgassing is addresses by:

Defining contamination budget for each spacecraft subsystem
By selecting materials that have acceptable levels of outgassing
Note: Because wet lubricants have high levels of outgassing bearing etc.
are typically sealed and proven techniques are used to control
outgassing

Vacuum
As an example ASTM 595 specifies testing materials at 257 oC in a vacuum
of 10-5 torr for 24 hours.
For a material to pass this test the total mass loss must be no greater than
1% by weight
Another problem posed by space vacuum is that, because spacecraft are
manufactured at ambient Earth pressure, any sealed structure will
experience internal pressure of that level (1 atm) once in space
Such pressures can generate high pressures. To avoid explosion type
failures we must:
- design the enclosing walls to withstand this pressure
- vent all closed spaces (holes are drilled in electronic boxes etc)

Vacuum
Honeycomb core in sanwich panels must be perforated to vent the inner
cells
Desorption is another class of problem associated with space vacuum
Polymers used for adhesives and the matrix of composites tend to absorb
water in humid environments causing expansion
Once in space, polymeric materials desorb the water causing the structure
to contract:
- The water can contaminate critical surfaces
- Expansion and contraction can cause misalignments, so in design they
must be accounted for

Thermal Radiation

Spacecraft temperatures depend on:

- Internal heat generation
- Heat emitted from spacecraft to deep into space
- Heat absorbed by the spacecraft from the external sources

An orbiting spacecrafts components have four external sources of heat:

- Solar radiation
- Albedo radiation (solar radiation reflecting from Planets surface)
- Planetary emissions
- Spacecraft emissions from heat generating components

Thermal Radiation

Thermal environments pose several problems for spacecraft designers.

Due to nonuniform heating and different materials expanding and

contracting different amounts for a given temperature change, spacecraft
structures distort under thermal environment

If we do not control these distortions, critical sensors and antennas may not
be able to find their targets, and mechanisms may jam

Stresses caused by nonuniform heating and thermal distortions can result in

structural failure or reduced structural life

Temperatures affect key properties of materials such as strength, stiffness,

ductility etc.

Thermal Radiation

Most importantly, many of the spacecrafts electrical and mechanical

components will work only within certain temperature ranges

The purpose of a spacecrafts thermal control subsystem is to maintain

spacecraft temperatures within acceptable ranges:
- Active thermal control: pumped liquid loops, heaters, refrigerators
- Passive thermal control: Thermal blankets, radiators etc.