Patent ID: 6062511
Filing Date: 2000-05-16
Classification: B64G,Y10S

Abstract:
A device for angularly positioning a moving part equipping a spacecraft, the device comprising a heat-sensitive drive mechanism made of a double-acting shape-memory alloy, said drive mechanism being suitable for causing a panel to be displaced relative to a body of the spacecraft as a function of the direction of incidence of the solar radiation on the spacecraft and designed to be displaced under the effect of its temperature, said mechanism being connected to the moving part so that said displacement is transmitted to the moving part, wherein said moving part is a solar panel connected hingedly to the body of the spacecraft, and said drive mechanism is designed to take up automatically, under the effect of its temperature, one of two states which differ from each other by a rotation through a determined angle, a first one of said states being taken up for temperatures lower than a first value (T.sub.1), and a second one of said states being taken up for temperatures higher than a second value (T.sub.2), said drive mechanism being designed so that a predetermined change in the direction of incidence of the solar radiation on the spacecraft is accompanied by a change in the temperature of the drive mechanism causing said temperature to move between a value lower than said first value and a temperature higher than said second value, and by a change in the state thereof and in the angular position of the solar panel tending to reduce the angle of incidence of the solar radiation on said solar panel, and wherein said solar panel is mounted to pivot on the body of the spacecraft about an axis of rotation, and said drive mechanism is a torsion bar which is elongate along said axis of rotation, one axial end of said torsion bar being connected to the body of the spacecraft, and the other axial end of said torsion bar being connected to said solar panel, a change in a state of said torsion bar being accompanied by a change in a shape of said torsion bar causing said axial ends to rotate relative to each other and said solar panel to tilt.