Space Systems Design Studio

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Flux Pinning Laboratory Projects

Microgravity Technology Demonstrations

A Space Systems Design Studio team participated in the NASA Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology Development and Training (FAST) program for microgravity flights in August 2009 and September 2010. For both experiments the team flew two mockup CubeSat modules with a flux-pinned interface through 67 microgravity parabolas on a Zero-G Corporation aircraft. These flights demonstrated the flux-pinning concept in small spacecraft, with low stiffness and small separation distances. These experiments have been critical to increasing the technology readiness levels of flux-pinned interfaces and flux-pinned revolute joints.

For more information, see the Flight Projects portion of the website. Back to top

Air-Leviated Small-Spacecraft Dynamics Testbed

The Space Systems Design Studio has developed a set of nanosatellite-scale, air-levitated vehicles for testing spacecraft dynamics and technologies in a low-friction, 2D environment. These vehicles, slightly larger than CubeSats, currently serve an important role in the verification of our microgravity hardware and procedures. In the future, these modular, customizable vehicles will serve as platform for testing not only flux pinning technologies, but also other spacecraft technologies, sensors, and control strategies.

For more information, see:

• Wilson and Peck, "An Air-Levitated Testbed for Flux Pinning Interactions at the Nanosatellite Scale"

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Characterization of Flux Pinning

The flux pinning effect creates effective stiffness and damping for small motions in multiple degrees of freedom. Other researchers have focused mainly on the vertical and lateral stiffness of a connection as applied to levitation systems. The additional stiffness and damping associated with the relative attitude of the components, however, represents a valuable augmentation to the general rigid body motion of vehicles in orbit. By pinning a magnetic field in various relative positions and orientations to a HTSC and observing the system's response to an input, we can estimate the linearized properties at these specific points in configuration space. Fitting an appropriate curve to this data provides an experimentally based description of flux pinning, which informs design choices when creating a flux-pinned formation.

For more information, see:

• Shoer, "Flux-Pinned Interfaces for the Assembly, Manipulation, and Reconfiguration of Modular Space Systems"
• Shoer and Peck, "A Flux-Pinned Magnet-Superconductor Pair for Close-Proximity Station Keeping and Self-Assembly of Spacecraft"

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