Starshade concepts must be stowed within rocket fairings for launch and then deployed in space. The in-plane deployment accuracy must be on the order of hundreds of micrometers for sufficient starlight suppression to enable the detection and study of Earth-like exoplanets around nearby Sun-like stars. We describe tests conducted to demonstrate deployment repeatability of two key structural subsystems of the “furled” starshade architecture—the petal and the inner disk. Together, the petals and the inner disk create the in-plane shape of a starshade. Test articles to represent the petal and inner disk subsystems were constructed at relevant scales for a 26-m-diameter starshade. These test articles were subjected to stowage-and-deployment cycles and their shapes were measured. The measured performance—tens of parts per million of petal strain after deployment, and hundreds of micrometers of inner disk deployment accuracy—was found to be within required allocations.

中文翻译：

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演示折叠的星状阴影架构的关键子系统的部署可重复性

必须将Starshade概念存放在火箭整流罩中以便发射，然后在太空中部署。为了充分抑制星光，平面内部署精度必须在数百微米的数量级上，以便能够检测和研究附近类似太阳的恒星周围的类似地球的系外行星。我们描述了为证明“皱纹”星状阴影结构的两个关键结构子系统（花瓣和内盘）的部署可重复性而进行的测试。花瓣和内盘共同构成了一个星影的平面形状。代表花瓣和内部磁盘子系统的测试文章是以相关比例构建的，直径为26 m。对这些测试物品进行积载和部署周期，并测量其形状。