A flexible Si-Core blanket, z-folded into a flat launch package between a root panel and a pressing panel, deployed by a full-width pantograph below the array into a large, flat blanket.
The Z-Fold is a different system from the wing: no rigid panels on a yoke, but a long blanket of Si-Core module fields in fold segments. A lazy-tong pantograph of full-width arms runs from the solar array drive under the blanket to the pressing panel and extends in one motion; it touches only the drive and the two rigid panels, never the cell substrate.
Si-Core ST102 strings run the full length of the flexible substrate, five cells per fold segment, so every fold line falls into a cell gap; flexible interconnects bridge the folds. Folds flat for launch, hangs free between root and pressing panel in deployment.
One lazy-tong pantograph of 2.8 m arms in a plane below the blanket: stowed a flat bundle of nine arm layers under the root panel, deployed a chain of eight diamonds on the centre line. Its root apex sits on the solar array drive, the first crossing carries the root panel, the tip apex pushes the pressing panel.
The solar array drive sits on the spacecraft wall behind the root, its axis along the wing, and turns the whole wing for sun pointing. The root cell of the pantograph lifts the package off the wall; the root panel carries the first blanket segment and the folded stack at launch.
A pressing panel on top of the stack with three hold-down arms through the package. Released, the arms retract and a carriage frame from the pantograph's tip apex carries the panel outwards, the blanket unfolding behind it segment by segment.
Blanket, root panel and pressing panel stow as one flat stack of about 2.8 × 0.5 × 0.3 m; the collapsed pantograph lies as a flat bundle of arms under the root panel, its apex on the drive.
Same silicon cell strings and production line as our modules and wings.
The Z-Fold is sized per mission: blanket length, segment count, root interface and deployment sequence follow your spacecraft and power budget. Talk to our sales team — we take you through the design and what it means for your platform.
Your platform class and launch envelope, the power budget per spacecraft, bus voltage, orbit and lifetime — and your timeline.