Sylar - Space Apps Challenge

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Sylar has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Local Peoples' Choice Winner

Global Nominee

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For bigger spacecraft capable of executing bigger missions, some of the assembly may be done in space. Your challenge is to design a simple approach that enables components to be assembled in space.

R.O.S.A. (Rigid Origami Space Architecture)

Summary

Rocket size and weight constraints are a limit to the objects we want to build in space, but we can imagine an expanding structure designed to fold into the smallest possible space.Once taken into orbit and released, the Triangulated Origami Cylinder is attached to a reusable Habitation module, then compressed air is released inside the cylinder until a livable pressure is reached. Since it is opposed by only the vacuum of space, the cylinder can expand to its final shape. Then, being a bistable structure at the maximum expansion, only a compression force can collapse it. Now we can assemble the components to the origami structure and release the Habitation module for the next cylinder.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Instead of thinking about assembling large and rigid objects in space, we can imagine an expanding object designed to fold into the smallest possible space.

In this way

1. It would take up less space on the launch module

2. It is more reliable in deployment

3. Creases on the metal increase the rigidity of the structure, so the external structure could be thinner and lighter, allowing us to bring a larger object into orbit.

By foldingor rolling a material, you create a "thickness" which allows it to reinforce itself and not collapse so easily.

Corrugated steel, corrugated cardboard, creases in the external panels of your car. Ridges in shells, palm leaves. Every one of these leverages bends in a sheet to increase it’s strength.

How We Developed This Project

We have always been fascinated by the "space debris" issue that inflicts out planet, and

since we are both students of mechanical engineering, practical architectural solutions are the ones that most stimulate our creativity.

Surfing the internet and doing some research, we found out that the current problems that exist regarding space assembly are mainly:

-the possibility of robotic arms to being hit by space debris such micro metal fragments

(https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/23/iss-forced-to-move-to-avoid-space-debris) ;

-the erosion of mechanical components due to friction with the atmosphere, which, although subtle, is not negligible at high speeds;

-the "seven degrees of freedom" that the NASA servicing robot has — a three-axis shoulder, a pitch actuator at the elbow, and a three-axis spherical wrist. Very complicated to manoeuvre and easy to break ;

-the additional weight of the manoeuvring propellant that must be added at the moment of launch into orbit

(https://spacenews.com/starliner-anomaly-to-prevent-iss-docking/) ;

Considering all these issues, we therefore agreed that it would have been better to reinvent from scratch a construction system suitable for the space environment.