Speakers
Description
With increasing interest and plans evolving for a range of lunar surface missions, there are considerable opportunities to deploy lunar payloads along with emerging plans for development of significant infrastructure on the surface of the moon. ESA, having anticipated such needs, have supported the development of new active thermal technologies which are generic in nature. These have included a dust-resilient lunar shutter and more recently a versatile retractable MLI device.
The shutter is a linear device referred to as LTS (formerly LDRLR) which began in 2020, is expected to reach TRL 5 in Q1 2027, while the retractable MLI device (REM), which started in 2024, is expected to achieve a similar status in Q4 of 2027.
Both devices have been developed with a view to be readily scaled, to support a wide range of applications. Both are suitable for radiator or solar panel applications, with a view to providing dust protection, while 3D nature of the REM is very adaptable to a range of surface applications, as well as for interplanetary missions. Specific surface applications would include surface payloads, docking ports, infrastructure service covers, radiators and rover storage facilities. Two versions of REM are being developed with a modular 90° actuation as the baseline and a full 180° version as an option.
Both developments have involved ESR Technology and Almatech, while Admatis joined the consortium as system and thermal lead for the Retractable MLI development. ESR have been responsible for both mechanism developments while Almatech have supported thermal and structural analysis of the shutter, as well as critical flex-pivot applications in both devices.
The presentation will provide an overview of both developments to explain the design approaches taken and the status of each. The results of early REM prototyping will be highlighted, as well as the evolution of the EM design, as established for the Detailed Design Review.