The Orbital Express Demonstration System (OEDS) flight test successfully demonstrated technologies required to autonomously service satellites on-orbit. The mission's integrated robotics solution, the Orbital Express Demonstration Manipulator System (OEDMS) developed by MDA, performed critical flight test operations. The OEDMS comprised a six-jointed robotic manipulator arm and its avionics, non-proprietary servicing and ORU (Orbital Replacement Unit) interfaces, a vision and arm control system for autonomous satellite capture, and a suite of Ground Segment and Flight Segment software allowing script generation and execution under supervised or full autonomy. The arm was mounted on ASTRO, the servicer spacecraft developed by Boeing. The NextSat, developed by Ball Aerospace, served as the client satellite. The OEDMS demonstrated two key goals of the OEDS flight test: autonomous free-flyer capture and berthing of a client satellite, and autonomous transfer of ORUs from servicer to client and back. The paper provides a description of the OEDMS and the key operations it performed.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Autonomous robotic operations for on-orbit satellite servicing


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Sensors and Systems for Space Applications II ; 2008 ; Orlando,Florida,United States


    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2008-04-15





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Satellite architecture [for autonomous on-orbit servicing]

    Moynahan, S.A. / Tuohy, S.T. | IEEE | 2000




    AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC DEVICE FOR SERVICING BUILDINGS

    NICHOLLS OLIVER | European Patent Office | 2019

    Free access

    Low-Earth orbit satellite servicing economics

    Davis, R. F. / Cepollina, F. J. | NTRS | 1982