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Issued patent

Diminutive Assembly for Nanosatellite deploYables (DANY)

An issued NASA patent from the Technology Transfer catalog.

View at technology.nasa.gov
Media from NASA Technology Transfer

About this technology

Overview

SmallSats (i.e., mass below 500 kg) are increasingly becoming big business. More than 100 global organizations across academia, governments, and industry are involved in the development of SmallSats of the nanosat/microsat variety (i.e., mass of 1-50 kg). According to SpaceWorks, up to 2,750 such nanosats/microsats will be launched from 2014 to 2020. To extract the most utility from these small packages, peripheral parts of the satellite (e.g., solar panels, antennae, sun shades, etc.) are deployed after a small sat is positioned in orbit. Meanwhile, these "deployables" are restrained close to the small sat body until extended using a release signal and mechanism.