Spacecraft Mechanisms

Systems for Separating Small, Medium, Heavy Spacecraft

• Purpose: Design, manufacture and testing of spacecraft separation systems for structural elements using cumulative charges, small explosive locks, etc.
• Flight qualification of the product: Yes
• Brief history of flight qualification: Vast work experience.
• Possibility to adapt the product to customer requirements: Yes

Spacecraft are mounted on LV using quick-disconnect devices (locks, pyro-bolts, etc.) that release the spacecraft from the mount after the end of the last stage engine.
Remaining free, the spacecraft can hit the detached part. To prevent this, the spacecraft separation system includes exciters (pushers, nozzles, engines, etc.), which ensure the spacecraft's departure from the LV without damage and with a minimum of disturbances. These disturbances come to the spacecraft from its attachment points, because locks, power activators, communications connectors not only provide separation, but also generate an impulse of force and moment acting on the spacecraft.