ESR Space welcomed technical authorities Philipp Hager (Thermal) and Elena-Cristina Paul (Mechanisms) from the European Space Agency (ESA) on site this week for the successful Test Readiness Review (TRR) for the Lunar Shutter project.
The Lunar Shutter is a breadboard development project to create a variable geometry radiator tailored for lunar applications, providing the ability to protect radiators from degradation caused by lunar dust deposition.
In partnership with Spacemech and Almatech, ESR Space has developed a novel roller mechanism that allows the radiator area exposed to be varied, thus improving thermal control. The design has been tailored to meet the harsh environmental conditions of the lunar south pole including features to ensure that lunar dust does not disrupt the movements of the mechanism.
With the shutter build now complete and a successful TRR held, ESR Space will now spend the coming months characterising the performance and compatibility of the device over a wide temperature range from -150°C to +120°C, demonstrating its effectiveness in providing thermal control and its resilience to a lunar regolith simulant.
ESR Space Senior Mechanisms Engineer & Project Manager, Olly Poyntz-Wright said: “This is a really important milestone for the project and has been achieved only through some fantastic work from the whole Mechanisms team. It is amazing to finally see the hardware working, and it looks great. We are excited to start the test campaign and put the shutter through its paces at the extreme conditions it has been designed for.”
ESA Technical Officer, Philipp Hager said “It was great to see the assembled shutter system breadboard working in the ESR cleanroom, ready for the upcoming environmental test campaign. Great achievement by ESR and their partner Almatech.”
Andrew Gibson, Head of Space Mechanisms at ESR Space, will be presenting an overview of the project and updates to the test campaign at the 47th American Mechanisms Symposium (AMS) at Virginia Beach, VA next month. The presentation will be given on Day 2 of the symposium.
A datasheet is available on the ESR Space Webpage.
More information on the Lunar Shutter can be found in the ICES Conference Paper from 2023:
https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/62099a54-2b85-4f9a-8c34-6a475b56920d/content
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