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A team of engineering students and faculty at ��㴫ý has been awarded a $450,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) to develop deployable thermoplastic carbon fiber composite booms for CubeSats, small satellites used in space missions.

The project is directed by Oleksandr Kravchenko, Ph.D., principal investigator and associate professor in ��㴫ý’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and director of the Composites Modeling and Manufacturing (CMM) Group.

The three-year project, led by ��㴫ý in collaboration with the University of Washington (UW), focuses on developing novel lightweight, foldable arms known as deployable booms that support and extend antennas once the CubeSats are in orbit. The proposed boom will utilize tow-steered carbon fiber and space-grade thermoplastics for improved thermo-mechanical stability and rapid manufacturing. The project will serve as a research demonstrator for the next generation of deployable structures in CubeSats.

CubeSats are used for Earth observation, deep space exploration, communications, and national security missions. However, due to their compact size, they require innovative mechanical systems to deploy full-sized antennas and sensors once in orbit. That is where ��㴫ý’s project comes in.

“We’re trying to build more resilient structural booms: longer, stiffer, and more resistant to thermal fluctuation by using advanced manufacturing and materials,” Dr. Kravchenko said. “The success of the project requires testing under conditions expected during launch and in space environments, so we use extensive qualification and physics-based simulations to predict how manufacturing will impact the mechanics of this boom.”

In collaboration with UW, the project uses tailored placement of thin carbon-fiber thermoplastic strips using an advanced manufacturing technique called Automated Fiber Placement (AFP), in which a robotic arm lays down narrow fiber strips in precise patterns. The fiber sheets are then formed into booms using heat and pressure through a process called thermal stamping. The process eliminates the need for large, expensive autoclaves traditionally used to cure aerospace composites.

“Traditional composites have been used in booms for quite some time; they’re not new,” explained doctoral student Jimesh Bhagatji. “However, our work brings a new ‘flavor’ by using thin-ply composites and tow steering in designing the next generation composite booms. This allows for tailored fiber angles throughout the structure to achieve the desired mechanical behavior. Once we determine these parameters using simulation tools developed in our group, the AFP machine will be able to produce them.”

The UW team will manufacture the boom sheets using its AFP system. The finished components will be shipped to ��㴫ý, where the team will shape them into deployable structures and conduct structural and system-level testing.

“We’ll test the booms in simulated space conditions, including vacuum, vibration and temperature extremes,” Dr. Kravchenko said. “We’ll also build computer models to predict their behavior, then refine those models with the experimental data.”

The final boom system will be integrated into a CubeSat platform developed at ��㴫ý. A potential orbital launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base is targeted for 2026, with support from industry partners, (VISA) in collaboration with David Bowles, Ph.D., and the Coast Guard Academy.

The project builds on ��㴫ý’s growing CubeSat legacy. In 2019, the university’s first-ever student-built CubeSat was launched aboard a Northrop Grumman rocket to the International Space Station. That mission gave students hands-on experience in satellite design and deployment and paved the way for more advanced CubeSat research at the university.

“The team was a natural fit to work on this project. Their background made it easy for them to jump right in,” said Dr. Kravchenko.

Graduate student Christopher Schappi has been involved in ��㴫ý CubeSat projects since his freshman year. “I worked on CubeSat projects at ��㴫ý for a few years during my undergrad, and composite materials was the next thing I wanted to learn about,” he said. “Through this, I learned composite fabrication and testing. Currently, I am working on finite element analysis of deployable structures and refining these models, so we can accurately predict what we see in the actual application.”

Jimesh Bhagatji, a doctoral student who researched more traditional boom designs for his master’s thesis, is now researching polymer-based composites, using modeling and testing to help move the design forward.

The project also connects with a related CubeSat initiative in partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard Academy which is interested in embedding flexible printed circuit boards into the boom to serve as passive antennas for search and rescue operations.

While the primary goal is to improve satellite communication in orbit, the technology could be applied to other fields, including drones or communications infrastructure in remote or hard-to-reach areas, such as craters, canyons, or disaster zones.

“There are many types of antennas including active and passive,” Dr. Kravchenko said. “In this case, we’re designing a structure that could act as the antenna itself. That’s part of what makes this ambitious. From a materials standpoint, we want to tailor it in a way that it could serve a structural and functional role.”

Beyond national defense applications, the project gives students invaluable real-world experience in aerospace systems, advanced manufacturing, and composite design.

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The Composite Modeling & Manufacturing Lab (CMM) group at ��㴫ý’s Batten College of Engineering and Technology works to advance the understanding of mechanics in novel composite materials by considering material science phenomena during manufacturing. CMM focuses on the multi-scale nature of composites using computationally driven approaches and AI coupled with experimental testing and material characterization. Over the years, CMM has worked with industrial partners and federal agencies, such as NASA, DOD, and DOE, on various projects. Since 2017, more than 120 students including Ph.D., master’s, and undergraduates, have gained hands-on experience through various research and capstone courses through CMM.

For more information on ��㴫ý’s composites research, visit:

/mechanical-aerospace-engineering/research/cmml