Bistable tape springs are suitable as deployable structures thanks to their high packaging ratio, self-deployment ability, low cost, light weight, and stiffness. A deployable booms assembly composed of four 1-m long bistable glass fiber tape springs was designed for the electromagnetically clean 3U CubeSat Small Explorer for Advanced Missions (SEAM). The aim of the present study was to investigate the deployment dynamics and reliability of the SEAM boom design after long-term stowage using onground experiments and simulations. A gravity offloading system (GOLS) was built and used for the onground deployment experiments. Two booms assemblies were produced and tested: a prototype and an engineering qualification model (EQM). The prototype assembly was deployed in a GOLS with small height, whereas the EQM was deployed in a GOLS with tall height to minimize the effects of the GOLS. A simple analytical model was developed to predict the deployment dynamics and to assess the effects of the GOLS and the combined effects of friction, viscoelastic relaxation, and other factors that act to decrease the deployment force. Experiments and simulations of the deployment dynamics indicate significant viscoelastic energy relaxation phenomena, which depend on the coiled radius and stowage time. In combination with friction effects, these viscoelastic effects decreased the deployment speed and the end-of-deployment shock vibrations.

This study investigates the structural performance of long and slender tensegrity booms. Previous studies show that tensegrity structures are generally more flexible than conventional trusses or space frames. The aims here were (i) to quantify how much more flexible eleven different tensegrity booms are, when compared to state-of-the-art truss booms, (ii) to find a general explanation for this. The performance criterion used for the comparison was the first natural frequency of the boom. A finite element program with truss elements was used to compute the natural frequencies around the initial prestressed configurations. The results show that tensegrity booms have between one and three orders of magnitude lower natural frequencies than truss booms. It is concluded that for the best performing tensegrity booms, the bending stiffness is independent of the level of pre-stress and the number of infinitesimal mechanisms as the bending stiffness is given mainly by the material stiffness of the tension elements and not the geometric stiffness as the infinitesimal mechanisms are not activated by bending. Thus, whereas the level of pre-stress and the presence of infinitesimal mechanisms play major roles for the stiffness of some tensegrity structures, the axial stiffness and orientation of tension elements are most important for the studied slender booms.