Stretched Lens Array SquareRigger (SLASR): A New Space Array for High-Power Missions

SLASR offers an amazingly an extremely light-weight compact stowed volume and deployed platform for the flexible-blanket version of SLA for high-power space missions. For launch, SLASR's carbon composite structural tubes stow in a very compact volume, with the two folded and interleaved blankets of lenses and radiator sheets (containing the solar cell circuits) nested between the tubes. On orbit, the tubes automatically deploy to form rectangular "bay" structures, each about 2.5 mtimes5.0 m in size. After the bay tubular frame structure deploys and locks, the lens and radiator blankets are automatically pulled across the frame to form the deployed solar array. Under previous Stretched Lens Array (SLA) development programs, the photovoltaic receiver used discrete bypass diodes to protect the multi-junction cells from reverse-bias damage