Fiberglass Plus Textile To Help The Spacecraft Fly Into Space

  On January 17, 2024, the Tianzhou VII cargo spacecraft delivered a batch of living supplies and experimental equipment to the space station. It turns out that the solar wing substrate of the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft is surprisingly woven as well, with a fiberglass mesh structure that looks like a tennis racket.
  According to reports, Tianzhou cargo spacecraft is a semi-rigid solar wing, the solar wing of the border for the carbon fiber, the middle of the fiberglass mesh composed of mesh, similar to a tennis racket, the solar cell slice is hooked on the fiberglass mesh. This glass fiber mesh structure, with the characteristics of lightweight, and the low-orbit space environment of atomic oxygen, plasma has a stronger protection.
  Space has a large number of atomic oxygen exists, the oxidation capacity is very strong, so the general organic polymer materials are oxidized very much, so to choose a very high antioxidant capacity of the material, we chose the inorganic material glass fiber. Glass fiber has the advantages of antioxidant, light weight and so on. But it is very difficult to try to weave a net with glass fiber.
  But glass fiber also has a very big weakness, its weaving performance is very poor, because it is very brittle. Textile materials and fiber fineness is closely related, the finer the fiber, the flexibility is very strong. By twisting the fiber, it becomes a very coarse raw material that can be woven to achieve such a goal. It also has several advantages: it is lightweight, and it is all mesh, so it is possible to hook solar panels onto it.
  After the glass fiber is woven into the substrate of the solar sail panel, it is also coated with resin to enhance its performance. The resin is mainly to make the surface flatter, but also to give it a protective effect. Because of this kind of resin like silicone, it is more resistant to the space environment, and stability and abrasion resistance can also be improved, the overall performance can be greatly improved.----Glass Fiber Information Network