Reasons include the high cost of space flight and the lack of a well funded plan to develop inflatables, said Costas Cassapakis, president of L'Garde. The IAE came about almost by chance. It is not surprising there was no refight. Paradoxically, the same budget crunch that makes it hard to fund testing also cuts the money for spacecraft programs, pushing managers to look at promising unproven technologies like inflatables. Coupled with growing requirements for large apertures, NASA and the Defense Dept. may be forced to space-qualify inflatables to conduct certain missions, particularly since the IAE is now on the minds of many.
Solar sail has inflatable booms holding an ultra-thin reflector.
Deep Space 5 may test a solar sail, and NOAA's Geostorm is to use one to remain aloft at suborbital speeds. NASA decided this month to fund L'Garde testing the array as part of an Air Force Research Laboratory experiment on the Goddard Spartan bus. The shuttle mission is to occur in 1999 or 2000. The inflatable device has the lowest volume and mass, Chmielewski said. A synthetic aperture radar antenna with radiating elements carried in a membrane with accurate planarity.