Design and construction of a carbon fiber gondola for the SPIDER   balloon-borne telescope

J. D. Soler (1; 2); P. A. R. Ade (3); M. Amiri (4); S. J. Benton; (5); J. J. Bock (6); J. R. Bond (7; 8); S. A. Bryan (10); C. Chiang (11; and 13); C. C. Contaldi (14); B. P. Crill (6; 9); O. P. Dor\'e (6; 9),; M. Farhang (7); J. P. Filippini (6); L. M. Fissel (2); A. A. Fraisse (11); A.; E. Gambrel (11); N. N. Gandilo (2); S. Golwala (6); J. E. Gudmundsson (11),; M. Halpern (4; 8); M. Hasselfield (4; 11); G. C. Hilton (15); W. A.; Holmes (9); V. V. Hristov (6); K. D. Irwin (15); W. C. Jones (11); Z. D.; Kermish (11); C. L. Kuo (12); C. J. MacTavish (7); P. V. Mason (6); K. G.; Megerian (9); L. Moncelsi (6); J. M. Nagy (10); C. B. Netterfield (2; 5; and 8); R. O'Brient (6; 9); A. S. Rahlin (11); C. D. Reintsema (15); J. E.; Ruhl (10); M. C. Runyan (9); J. A. Shariff (2); A. Trangsrud (9); C. Tucker; (3); R. S. Tucker (6); A. D. Turner (9); A. C. Weber (9); D. V. Wiebe (4); E.; Y. Young (11) ((1) Institute d'Astrophysique Spatiale. CNRS. France; (2); Department of Astronomy; Astrophysics. University of Toronto. Canada; (3); School of Physics & Astronomy. Cardiff University. UK; (4) Department of; Physics & Astronomy. University of British Columbia. Canada; (5) Department; of Physics. University of Toronto. Canada; (6) Department of Physics.; California Institute of Technology. USA; (7) CITA. University of Toronto.; Canada; (8) Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Canada; (9) Jet; Propulsion Laboratory; (10) Department of Physics. Case Western Reserve; University. USA; (11) Department of Physics. Princeton University. USA; (12); Department of Physics. Stanford University. USA; (13) School of Mathematics,; Statistics & Computer Science. University of KwaZulu-Natal. South Africa,; (14) Theoretical Physics Blackett Laboratory. Imperial College. UK; (15); National Institute of Standards; Technology. USA)

arXiv:1407.1881·astro-ph.IM·June 22, 2015

Design and construction of a carbon fiber gondola for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope

J. D. Soler (1, 2), P. A. R. Ade (3), M. Amiri (4), S. J. Benton, (5), J. J. Bock (6), J. R. Bond (7, 8), S. A. Bryan (10), C. Chiang (11, and 13), C. C. Contaldi (14), B. P. Crill (6, 9), O. P. Dor\'e (6, 9),, M. Farhang (7), J. P. Filippini (6), L. M. Fissel (2)

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TL;DR

This paper details the design and construction of a lightweight, high-precision carbon fiber gondola for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope, enabling sensitive measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Contribution

It introduces a novel construction method for a lightweight gondola using carbon fiber and aluminum, optimized for balloon-borne astrophysical experiments.

Findings

01

Gondola mass is less than 10% of total payload.

02

Finite Element Analysis validated the structural integrity.

03

Mechanical tests confirmed design robustness.

Abstract

We introduce the light-weight carbon fiber and aluminum gondola designed for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope. SPIDER is designed to measure the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation with unprecedented sensitivity and control of systematics in search of the imprint of inflation: a period of exponential expansion in the early Universe. The requirements of this balloon-borne instrument put tight constrains on the mass budget of the payload. The SPIDER gondola is designed to house the experiment and guarantee its operational and structural integrity during its balloon-borne flight, while using less than 10% of the total mass of the payload. We present a construction method for the gondola based on carbon fiber reinforced polymer tubes with aluminum inserts and aluminum multi-tube joints. We describe the validation of the model through Finite Element Analysis and…

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