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Engineering topics

T.G. Harrington

Publications and source records attributed to T.G. Harrington.

Compression-spring separation mechanisms

Theseparationofspacecraftcomponents,whichoccurineveryflight,representscrucialandmajoreventsthatmustbesuccessfullyexecutedtofulfillmissionrequirements.Separationsystemsvaryaswidelyinphysicalandfunctionalpropertiesastheperformancerequirementswhichtheymustsatisfy;however,mostsystemsusehelicalcompressionspringsasanenergysource.Thispapersummarizestheprincipaldesigncharacteristicsofseparationmechanismsandempiricaldataobtainedfromactualseparationsinspace.

SEPARATION