Sugiyama Y., Araki K., Shirako M., Honda H., Nakamura Y., Kobayashi C.

The present paper describes mainly the development of pin-puller for a space boom to be installed on a 50 kg-class micro-satellite, tentatively code-named as SOHLA-1. The total mass of the boom system is 280 g, while the length is 425 mm. A pin-puller is a most important part for launch-rock and release mechanism of a space boom. Firstly proposed was the new type of pin-puller of spring-gut type. A bread-board model(BBM) of a boom accommodated with a pin-puller (BBM) was tested on a shaker bed in transverse direction to find that a dummy mass at the tip end, a dummy of mission device of 100 g, was subjected to severe rotational motion around the pin as center of rotation. This was because of a distance between the center of the dummy mass and the pin. Then the engineering model(EM) of pin-puller was designed to suppress the rotational motion by adopting two pins, though a normal pin-puller has a single pin. Vibration test of pin-puller EM was conducted to find the rotational motion of the dummy mass suppressed considerably. Through vibration tests and space environment test, a pin-puller and thus boom was redesigned to make a proto-type model(PM). Thus the paper demonstrates how the vibration testing was of vital importance in developing and refining a pin-puller and a space boom as well.