The ANTS architectural concept starts at the very beginning, with automated assembly, shipping, and deployment using SMART (Super Miniaturized Addressable Reconfigurable Technology) boxes. SMART electromechanical, MEMS, or NEMS nodes from which structural elements deploy form the basic 'building blocks'. The basic structural unit is a tetrahedron, with a node at each apex. Nodes deploy structural elements to form a 3D tetrahedral truss structure. Subsystems, such as a sail or shell, or instrument, are deployed from specialized nodes. The architecture is fully reversibly self-deploying and self-stowing and thus capable of repair or adaptation in response to injury. Shipping stowage ranges from 1/10 (near to mid-term) to 1/100 (far term) of deployment size, and the shipping box wrapped around each unit is capability of propulsion and communication. In the far term, 1000 boxes will form a 1 meter cube to be shipped to the launch site, on the ground or in space. elements or struts
Each craft uses SMART-based subsystems, shell, and tethers. Subsystems can be tethered to an external platform for operation in space or inside the frame to secure on the ground. Communication is via the structure itself or wireless. The shell will consist of highly stretchable fabric based on multilayer dendritic helical stacking carbon nanotubule polymers which can be stowed into much smaller volume or fully extended to form a surface with required reflectivity/absorptivity. When acting as a sail, such a surface is capable of precise attitude control through changing shape, orientation relative to the sun, and effective sail area.
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