Small Satellite Solar Array Substrate

The SMall EXplorer (SMEX) Fast Auroral SnapshoT (FAST) Spacecraft (S/C) was developed to investigate plasma physics of auroral phenomena at high orbital altitude. The FAST Satellite is comprised of a variety of deployable booms with sensors on the ends, and instruments that protrude from the main body of the spacecraft to obtain the plasma and electromagnetic fields data. This required that the plasma disturbance around the satellite be kept to a minimum. Therefore a non-deployable, body mounted Solar Array (SA) had to be implemented. This led to the design of a light weight SA substrate with a high degree of structural integrity. This SA substrate will be the topic of this paper.