On the dynamics of deployment of an orbital structure with elastic elements

The object to be studied is a spacecraft with a deployable pantograph structure as a solar-battery carrier. The objective of research is to design a mathematical model of this structure taking the elasticity of pantograph elements into account. The Lagrangian formalism is followed. To model the dynamic processes in the system, a software package has been developed, which can be adapted, if necessary, to study deployable structures of other types. The behavior of the structure during deployment, collapse, and redeployment under the action of various perturbations is modeled numerically. Plots illustrating the variation of characteristic variables are presented __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 42, No. 8, pp. 136–144, August 2006.