Briefs from the ESTEC Inflatables Workshop

by A. Autino

The 1^st European Workshop on Inflatable Space Structures took place at ESTEC (Noordvijk, the Nederland), the 21-22 may 2002. The following notes are intended to provide my personal interpretation of the event, and some reflections after it. 

The aim of the workshop, for ESA, was the one to make the point of the current situation, and to see who is really interested in the different research activities, in the phase that is now opening: validation of technologies. A period of, let's say, 10 years, that should include flight tests, and prepare the producers for the real user market, in closed follow up.

As to participants, it is worth of note the absence of many primes. Alcatel was not there. Alenia was foreseen in the program but didn't come. Other companies, smaller but relevant, as Fokker and CASA, were also absent, and Contraves too. The Swiss corporation -- active in several market segments -- decided, in the early 2002, not to invest anymore in the field of inflatables. If Contraves decided to retire from such research activity, dr. Marco C. Bernasconi didn't follow such a decision: he was present at the workshop, giving 3 papers! 

Just for the youngest among us, or the ones not so internal to space technologies history and development, it is worth to notice that dr. Marco C. Bernasconi since the longest time in Europe (more than 20 years, with Contraves) developed studies and researches in the domain of inflatable technologies for space. In 2002, after the Contraves decision, he decided to leave Contraves. By the way I am proud to say that he is now the Astronautics Dept Manager and an associated of Andromeda s.r.l., the small company chaired by the writer of this notes! But this is another story, that we hope will bring interesting news in the near future! 

To complete the information about participants, on the primes side, EADS-LV and ASTRIUM were present. Some SMEs, many Universities and Research Centers were also present.

The atmosphere of the workshop was of good interest, the level of papers and presentations was middle-high, though Prof. Jenkins, in the Q&A period, did mention a few US things that may be worrisome, e.g. that two planned flight tests have recently been cancelled, or that SBIR Phase-II activities had been placed on hold... 

Many interesting papers gave a wide panorama of the inflatable technologies applications (habitats, hangars, solar sailing, photovoltaic systems, antenna reflectors, aero-brakes, reentry systems, just to name the most popular ones), an excursus on the development techniques, a vision of the possible market  development. The number and quality of the presented papers and posters testify a great will to do, by the side of many companies and research entities.

ESA seems in the process of defining a strategy, although the first steps appears altogether excessively modest (and too modestly funded)... Surely the cuts over Atlantic (mainly on ISS programmes), and the low phase of the telecommunication market (still the only commercial space), put serious conditions to the development of a strong European strategy, but Europeans do hold all the necessary skills, and can well setup their own road to the space frontier.
Despite the above odd vectors, also considering the period immediately following the workshop, we can observe that the environment is alive and active, there is a good number of open tenders by ESA, and the developers (included ourselves!) are well determined to work out the necessary activities. 

Of course we should like very much more to see some flight test too, and not only ground demonstrators, but seems (according to Mr. Toussaint - EADS-LV) that a somewhat steps story will go on. The first step - starting now - is the validation of technologies, including flight tests. Such phase is mostly still to be financed by public money, under coordination of the agencies. When the technologies will be validated and demonstrated, the private market will be approached: first of all Scientists (for payload experiments), telecommunication, but also reentry of experiments' hw from the SS, or entry of exploration vehicles into planetary atmospheres...

Of course the above scenario is the most conservative one. We all are strongly suggested to take a look at Dr. P. Q. Collins vision of the Space Tourism development within 2030: "what passenger air travel did for the 20th century," he writes in a recent editorial for AviationNow.com "passenger space travel can do for the 21st century - if space will only learn from aviation." . In this last hopeful case, the market for inflatables products would be some magnitudes bigger, and the whole economy would strongly benefit of such a development. Of course, in this hopeful case, also the technologies validation programs would likely receive a powerful kick in the bottom!

[016.AA TDF.1/2002 - 11.07.2002]