Mechanical Design for JET-X Aperture Door

The joint European X-ray Telescope, JET-X, is one of the core instruments in the scientific payload of the Russian Spectrum Roentgen-Gamma-RG which is a high energy astrophysics mission. The JET-X structure is constructed from three carbon fibre tubular sections, and contains the instruments and acts as an optical bench. The forward section of the structure has a deployable door, which remains closed until the satellite has reached orbit. The function of the door is to protect sensitive optical surfaces from contamination and moisture from ground operations, during launch and early orbits operations. The door is fabricated from a honeycomb core faced with aluminium alloy skins. The door is approximately 1 m in diameter and weighs about 6 Kg only. The door body, the cutter assembly and the hinge assembly were designed to withstand the mechanical stresses arising during the launch environment. The door assembly was integrated to the main structure and vibration tests which simulate the conditions during the launch were conducted. These tests were: Sine, Random and Shock. This paper presents the door assembly design, the finite element modelling and the dynamic responses during the tests.