Thermal Stability Design of Asymmetric Support Structure for an Off-Axis Space Camera

Abstract

With the development of space optical remote sensing technology, especially off-axis space cameras, the thermal dimensional stability of the support structure has become increasingly demanding. However, the asymmetry of the camera structure has not been fully considered in the past design of the thermal stability of off-axis cameras. In order to solve this problem, a support structure with very low thermal deformation in the asymmetric direction is presented in this paper for an off-axis TMA camera. By means of the negative axial thermal expansion coefficient of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP), a composite laminate with near zero-expansion was obtained by adjusting the direction of fiber laying, and the asymmetric feature of the off-axis remote sensing camera structure was fully considered, thus enabling the support structure to have good thermal dimensional stability. We carried out a thermal load analysis and an optical analysis of the whole camera in the case of a temperature rise of 5 °C. The results show that the zero-expansion support structure has good thermal stability, and the thermal deformation in the asymmetric direction of the camera is obviously smaller than that of the isotropic laminate support structure. Compared with the isotropic support structure, the influence of thermal deformation on MTF is reduced from 10.43% to 2.61%. This study innovatively incorporates the asymmetry of the structure into the thermal sta-bility design of an off-axis TMA camera and provides a reference for the thermal stability design of other off-axis space cameras.

Multi-optimization for thermal deformation of gravitational wave telescope based on CFRP characteristics

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Non-Magnetic Negative Coefficient of Thermal Expansion Support Structure between Payloads in the Taiji Space Gravitational Wave Detection Satellite

“…Therefore, some materials with large magnetic moments, such as invar, cannot be applied to the support structure either. In addition, although carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) can be used to obtain an ideal CTE for the support rod by adjusting the layup of the carbon fiber material [16], due to the outgassing phenomenon of carbon fiber fabric (which is the release of gases absorbed or trapped, such as water vapor, during the CFRP production process), it can potentially have a significant impact on the dimensional stability of the structure [17]. Finally, the support structure is not used for the connection between components but for the connection between payloads.…”