Broadband vibration isolation in a deployable telescopic baffle exploiting post-buckling thrust tube dynamics

Baffle designs for microsatellite optical instruments are typically constrained by a strict trade-off: motorised telescopic mechanisms provide structural rigidity but incur significant mass and complexity penalties, whereas flexible deployable shrouds cannot provide the deterministic geometry necessary for high-precision optical rejection. Recently, a class of passively deployable, rigid telescopic baffles that reconcile launch volume restrictions and in-orbit geometry requirements have been developed. The architecture employs a nested segment arrangement with wire-driven actuation, stabilised via built-in geometrical constraints and pre-tension. The second generation of baffles discussed here features an integrated design, including an opening protective lid and a supporting thrust tube that contains the optical instrument. When subjected to high lateral loads, the thrust tube exhibits favourable attenuation properties, effectively acting as a geometrically nonlinear acceleration limiter for the telescopic structure during launch. Intermittent operation in a post-buckling regime, with purely elastic amplitude-dependent softening, provides the principal attenuation mechanism. Qualification tests demonstrate significant broadband transmission loss, with no signs of structural or functional degradation detected a posteriori. Initial empirical characterisation of this isolation property clearly shows that the current design inherently maintains a substantially lower vibration environment at the baffle interface compared to typical linearly behaving support structures.