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262 B. Defoort,V.Peypoudat, M.C. Bernasconi,K.Chuda and X. Coqueret
structure of stretched metal wires, making a radio reflector less sensitive to
the solar pressure. Several such wire-grid spheres actually flew, e.g. the USAF
OV1-8 satellite.
Fig. 1. An example of a balloon satellite: a mechanically-rigidized, 12-ft Explorer
IX inflatable sphere under full-gravity testing. (NASA picture)
Precision Structures
Solar concentrators (for thermodynamic power generation) represent a further
application that received extensive treatment using different gossamer
technology approaches (with inflated membranes, with various foam-in-place
techniques, with chemically-rigidized composites – both in form of membranes
and of expandable-honeycomb structures), and with most designs adopting
the lens-torus layout. Throughout the 1960s, they were studied in the US [7],
but also in Germany where, around 1965, Bolkow ¨ investigated an inflatable
foam-rigidized solar-thermal power collector [8]. Eventually, early in the 1970s,
MBB built a 1-m inflatable and rigidized antenna reflector using glass- fibrereinforced
gelatin for the torus and the reflector shells, and a polymer-film
radome [9].
In 1979, ESA began sponsoring a series of development contracts at Contraves
(Zurich, Switzerland) that one of the authors (MCB) had the privilege