JPL Starshade
The Starshade is a part of JPL's exoplanet imaging initiative. The ultimate goal is to use a telescope to directly image exoplanets for signs of extraterrestrial life: Starshade will function as a companion spacecraft to this telescope.
The current issue with direct imaging is starlight - an exoplanet's parent star emits light that washes out an image. Thus, the Starshade maneuver in front of the parent star's light and create a high-contrast shadow.
The Starshade is tens of meters in length. In order to bring such a device into space, it must launch in a stowed configuration and then deploy later. My intern project involved prototyping a ring truss that could stow compactly and deploy/lock. It is the ring truss that forms the backbone of the Starshade, where the light-blocking components are attached.
Created a modular component of the Starshade's ring truss. The overall ring truss was made of many of the individual members shown below. These components could fold upwards but also extend outwards. A series of ribs allowed the component to lock in its extended shape - since in space, the Starshade would need to deploy and never restow.
Assembled a 10ft diameter ring truss using these modules. Below shows all of the individual modules of the ring truss all assembled together. The entire truss could stow compactly, and then deploy into a ring. Due to the sensitive shape required for the Starshade to block out light, the truss had to be made within extremely tight tolerances. By utilizing very strict QA checks throughout the process, our intern team was able to get the truss to deploy within spec.
Created a gravity offloading system to suspend the truss. In order to test the truss deployment as if it were in space, we created a gravity offloading system to hang it from. Using very low-friction pulleys and metal shot pellets as counterweights, we were able to very precisely balance the weight of the truss we made.
Authored easy to understand procedures. For the entire assembly process, I also contributed towards writing a comprehensive procedure document, so that future workers could replicate our process and be aware of the steps needed to meet the tight tolerance specs.