SBIR-STTR Award

Deployable space structures are becoming increasingly important assets for use in the battlefield. Communications, global positioning, unmanned air vehicles and tracking and surveillance of enemy troops are creating an enormous demand for space borne assets. Structures that can package efficiently meet many of the needs of creating larger apertures for the high bandwidth military missions. We propose to demonstrate a novel high temperature dyed Colorless Organic/Inorganic Nanocomposite polyimide (CORIN) material. The material will be synthesized for coating PBO fibers and sheets to prevent VUV, UV, and AO degradation. The base polyimide has been successfully flight qualified, and transitioned for products on NASA, DoD and commercial satellite communications structures. Phase I results will be to demonstrate a scaleable process for applying coating materials to Polybenzoxazole fibers. Mechanical quantification of the material coating will be performed to demonstrate the adhesion of the polymer to the fiber during repeated cyclic stress and thermal loading. A key aspect of the proposed effort is transition of the coating process from a laboratory scale to production oriented processes. Our process will be demonstrated in Phase I for coating fiber and yarn materials to be scaled to production level processes in Phase II.

Keywords:
UV RESISTANT, POLYIMIDES, NANOCOMPOSITES, DEPLOYABLE SPACE STRUCTURES, FIBER COATING PROCESS, AO PROTECTION, CRACK RESISTANT COATINGS, PBO

The technical objective of this Phase II SBIR is to develop and test a 4-meter class inflatable Satellite Communications(SATCOM) antenna terminal in Ku-band. This effort will focus on maturing the component technologies involved with radome material selection, Ku-band RF feed and feed mount design, and development of mechanical/electrical interfaces for pointing and steering, and to transition all of the components into a prototype 4-m aperture SATCOM antenna.

Benefit:
The US military has a stated requirement to pass high bandwidth communications to and from theater and regional hubs. The development of a 4-meter class inflatable SATCOM antenna will meet that need while reducing transport weight and cube by greater than 20:1 over current hard-dish hub SATCOM antennas. The GATR antenna will enable establishment of quick-entry SATCOM hubs in theater, and will enable on-site back-up and sparing capabilities that currently do not exist.