Space station preliminary design report

The results of a 3 month preliminary design and analysis effort is presented. The configuration that emerged consists of a very stiff deployable truss structure with an overall triangular cross section having universal modules attached at the apexes. Sufficient analysis was performed to show feasibility of the configuration. An evaluation of the structure shows that desirable attributes of the configuration are: (1) the solar cells, radiators, and antennas will be mounted to stiff structure to minimize control problems during orbit maintenance and correction, docking, and attitude control; (2) large flat areas are available for mounting and servicing of equipment; (3) Large mass items can be mounted near the center of gravity of the system to minimize gravity gradient torques; (4) the trusses are lightweight structures and can be transported into orbit in one Shuttle flight; (5) the trusses are expandable and will require a minimum of EVA; and (6) the modules are anticipated to be structurally identical except for internal equipment to minimize cost.