LGarde
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| Private Company | |
| Industry | Aerospace |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Founders | Bill Larkin, Gayle Bilyeu, Alan Hirasuna, Rick Walstrom, Don Davis |
| Headquarters | 15181 Woodlawn Ave, Tustin, CA 92780 |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
| Products | Deployable Antennas, Space Propulsion, Space Structures, Missile Defense Targets and Countermeasures |
| Website | [1] |
LGarde, also L'Garde or L·Garde, is an American aerospace and defense technology company founded in 1971 in Orange County, CA and is the primary contractor for the Sunjammer spacecraft, the world largest solar sail. The company was an early pioneer of thin-skinned, multi-task inflatable structures used in various military and space applications. At the height of the Cold War, L·Garde developed and manufactured inflatable targets and decoy systems for U.S. military defense, and countermeasure systems for the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). After the Cold-War, the company used the technologies and manufacturing techniques it had developed to land a contract to design and build the inflatable antenna experiment and other thin-film inflatable space structures using its unique application of rigidizable tube technology. The company's unusual name is an acronym formed by the initials of the founding partners: Bill Larkin, Gayle Bilyeu, Alan Hirasuna, Rich Walstrom, Don Davis. The "E" comes from the Latin term "et al" (and others) as a tip to other partners and original employees of the company.
LGarde engineers took their experience with inflatable structures for military use to space applications around 1992 as a means of controlling the cost of deploying instrumentation into Earth orbit and beyond. They studied development work and lessons learned from projects for the United States Department of Defense and the NASA going back to the 1960s. Observing the advantages and challenges of deploying a very large inflatable antenna and other structures in Earth orbit using this technology, LGarde engineers also observed changes in structural principles when such structures are used in a zero-gravity environment, and other technical issues arising for large precision structures including surface accuracy, analysis and electrical properties.
LGarde’s first inflatable space structure project was the Spartan 207 Project, also known as the Inflatable Antenna Experiment, which was launched with Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-77, May 19. 1996. The goal of this mission was to inflate a 14-meter antenna on three 28-meter struts built by LGarde under contract with JPL. The project was developed under NASA’s In-STEP technology development program.
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