NASA recently evaluated initial flight data and imagery from Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-4 (PTD-4), confirming proper checkout of the spacecraft’s systems including its on-board electronics as well as the payload’s support systems such as the small onboard camera.
The payload, a deployable solar array with an integrated antenna called the Lightweight Integrated Solar Array and anTenna, or LISA-T, has initiated deployment of its central boom structure. The boom supports four solar power and communication arrays, also called petals. Releasing the central boom pushes the still-stowed petals nearly three feet (one meter) away from the spacecraft bus. The mission team currently is working through an initial challenge to get LISA-T’s central boom to fully extend before unfolding the petals and beginning its power generation and communication operations.
Applied’s Advanced Materials Division partnered with NASA to develop a space power source for CubeSats and small satellite applications. Known as Lightweight Integrated Solar Array (LISA), these highly efficient PV cells, Copper Indium Gallium Selenide Solar Cells (CIGS) and Inverted Metamorphic Multijunction Solar Cells (IMMs), are integrated with a thin film substrate and produce a deployable structure with a very high packaging factor
Formerly NeXolve, now a business unit of Applied Aerospace & Defense.
