Prospects for Very Large Space Telescopes:
How Mass Scales with Structural Requirements
Lee Peterson
Professor
Gary L. Roubos Endowed Chair
Department Chair (on sabbatical)
Director, Center for Aerospace Structures
Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO
A conceptual design framework is presented for studying how the mass
of a
large space telescope mirror will depend on design disturbances,
mirror diameter, and
practical structural design constraints. A variety of on-orbit,
launch, and ground test design
requirements are considered, as are practical constraints on
structural truss member
properties. While prior work emphasized the trade between structural
depth and overall
mass fraction, this paper shows how these practical constraints limit
the achievable
structural depth, and thus define an optimal depth. An example of a
tetrahedral support
truss for a segmented mirror is presented. For lightly loaded design
cases, it is observed that
the minimum mass structure is determined by the simultaneous
application of minimum
allowable tube thickness, a specified strut Euler buckling load, and a
specified strut pin-pin
frequency. Closed form solutions are derived for the optimal
structural depth and areal
density. These are shown to be independent of the diameter of the
telescope mirror.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
3:30 PM
Seaver Science Library, Room 150 (SSL 150)
Refreshments will be served at 3:15 pm.
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