Lunar heliostat

Last crawled date: 2 years ago

The deployable heliostat concept for lunar rover.
Reflector material: metallized boPET
Reflector area: 11.41 square meters.
Approx. mass: 80 kg
The extendable swing arms are the most important and most complex part of the mechanism. Its joints should be as rigid as possible. Thereby the mechanism contains a few components and is quite lightweight. Roll and pitch motors at the center provide ample degree of freedom for directing sunlight in any direction. Also heliostat is equiped with deployable solar panel providing energy for rover. Small fisheye camera at front side under solar panel is used both as solar sensor both for teleoperations. Reflective tapes stored in rolls in lightweight tube containers. Small motor inside every central tube is used for reeling tape while stowing heliostat. The structure is easily scalable in height.