SELTI (2021 - )

Following the presentation of MELLTT at the BIG Idea Forum in January 2021, NASA Langley Research Center's Deployable Composite Booms (DCB) team and the MELLTT team decided to continue our collaboration with a view to a potential technology demonstration flight project using a CLPS lander in the 2026 time frame. An unfunded Space Act Agreement between NASA and MIT was signed to formalize this collaboration and came into force in October 2021. NASA's DCB team loaned a 13m boom to our team, renamed SELTI for Self-Erecting Lunar Tower for Instruments, and the SELTI team developed designs for rigging systems to stabilize the tower. Experiments were carried out in Fall 2021 deploying the boom to 8m and 11m, demonstrating the utility of rigging systems in protecting the tall tower from collapse in the event of any large mechanical disturbances.