Nanosatellite solar panels deployment analysis and testing system preliminary design

There are three main energy sources used to power spacecrafts: batteries, solar panels and radioisotope thermoelectric generator. It depends on multiple factors the chose of one (or more) between these three. It is common that small spacecraft generates the needed power with both batteries and solar panels. For size reasons the spacecrafts can’t be launched with the solar panels already deployed so they are designed to deploy when the spacecraft is already in orbit and based on the spacecraft and solar panel array dimensions many deploying solutions have been developed. This work is focused on a particular solar panel design called nano trifold solar array and the goal is to simulate its deployment in order to early design an off-loading system. The off-loading system is used to test the deployment of a solar panel array in the clean rooms here on hearth when the gravity plays a major role especially on the hinges that are not designed to withstand their own weight. While there are already functional solutions, those are meant to test large scale solar panels and they do at slow velocity. The one designed here is instead meant to test the small solar panel of a microsatellite and do that at full velocity imposed by itself.