Opterus R&D | News & Media

“What’s Next” Pioneering Expandable Space Structures

LOVELAND, CO, 3 October 2022

The next space race is heating up with a bevy of new space-based businesses and missions to other planetary bodies. At the heart of this race lies a major engineering challenge — escaping earth’s gravity with space structures large enough to support next gen space travel and extraterrestrial colonization.Instead of larger spacecraft, Opterus designs and fabricates massive composite space structures that fit in extremely small payloads, which later expand in space.

Watch the video

More Opterus News

CompositesWorld

High-temperature composite 3D printing facilitates design, manufacture of deployable space structures.

OEDIT grant from state of Colorado

Opterus receives prestigious OEDIT grant from state of Colorado to help fund product development of innovative technology.

Opterus wins coveted role in Catalyst Accelerator

Opterus R&D of Loveland Colorado brings design expertise to Catalyst Space Accelerator collaboration.

SBIR Capture

Opterus achieves outstanding capture rate for SBIR proposals awarded in 2019, winning 90% of awards proposed

Opterus Awarded NASA Contract

Six-month Phase I SBIR program is to develop high-strength composite booms and wing deployment mechanisms for vertical lunar surface solar array

Publications

Below is a list of publications written by members of our team at Optures.

Murphey, T. W., et al (2015). High Strain Composites. In 2nd AIAA Spacecraft Structures Conference (pp. 1–53). Kissimmee, FL.
Murphey, T. W., Peterson, M. E., and Grigoriev, M. M. (2015), “Large Strain Four-Point Bending of Thin Unidirectional Composites,” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, vol. 52, May 2015, pp. 882–895.
Murphey, T. W., et al (2013), “Four Point Bending of Thin Unidirectional Composite Laminas,” 54th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Boston, MA.
Peterson, M. E., and Murphey, T. W. (2013), “Large Deformation Bending of Thin Composite Tape Spring Laminates,” 54th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Boston, MA.
Murphey, T. W., et al (2011), “Nonlinear elastic constitutive modeling of large strains in carbon fiber composite flexures,” 16th International Conference on Composite Structures, A.J.M. Ferreira, ed., Porto, Portugal: FEUP.
Sanford, G. E., Biskner, A., and Murphey, T. W. (2010), “Large Strain Behavior of Thin Unidirectional Composite Flexures,” 51st AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Orlando, FL.
Murphey, T. W. (2009), “Large Strain Composite Materials In Deployable Space Structures,” 17th International Conference on Composite Materials, Edinburgh, UK: The British Composites Society.
Murphey, T. W., et al (2007), “A Test Method to Assess the Foldability of Flexible Structural Materials,” 48th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Honolulu, HI. Pollard, E. L., and Murphey, T. W. (2006), “Development of Deployable Elastic Composite Shape Memory Alloy Reinforced (DECSMAR) Structures,” 47th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Newport, RI.
Murphey, T. W., et al (2001), “Some micromechanics considerations of the folding of rigidizable composite materials,” 42nd AIAA Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Seattle, WA.