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Posted by baalke on March 5, 2007, 2:08 pm
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http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/05mar_nohands.htm
Look Ma! No (Human) Hands!
NASA Science News
03.05.2007
March 5, 2007: It's the year 2020, and space has never been so busy.
Picture this:
In Earth orbit, a robotic maintenance ship skitters from one
weather
satellite to another, upgrading powerful optics that help
meteorologists track dangerous storms.
Four hundred thousand kilometers away, a cargo ferry arrives at
the
Moon. It spots an orbiting depot, makes its approach and mates
flawlessly, offloading drill heads, solar panels and other
supplies
for a frontier outpost at the Moon's south pole.
Meanwhile, down on the the lunar surface, mining buggies trundle
along a "sensor highway" between the outpost and some nearby
hills.
They're harvesting lunar ice hidden in the shadows of a deep, cold
crater.
Oh yeah - there's not a single human operator in this hypothetical
scenario.
It's not as far-out as it sounds. All of these spacecraft and
satellites, even the mining buggies, could one day operate on their
own,
guided not by humans but by automated rendezvous and docking
technologies now in development by NASA and its partners.
Some of those technologies are about to get a field test onboard
Orbital
Express--a space mission managed by the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) and a team led by engineers at NASA's
Marshall
Space Flight Center. Slated for launch this week, March 8, on an Atlas
V
rocket, Orbital Express will deploy two test satellites: the
Autonomous
Space Transport Robotic Operations (ASTRO) service vehicle, and the
Next-generation serviceable satellite (NextSat).
"Our goal is to demonstrate on-orbit refueling, component exchange and
satellite repair--all without a human operator," says James Lee, the
MSFC Automated Rendezvous and Docking Projects Lead.
In a nutshell, ASTRO will dock with NextSat and service it.
Who will pilot ASTRO? The answer is not who but what: the Advanced
Video
Guidance Sensor or AVGS for short. Mounted on ASTRO, the AVGS shoots
infrared laser beams, which bounce off a pattern of retroreflectors
on NextSat. By analyzing the reflections, ASTRO adjusts its speed and
angle of approach to safely close the distance and make contact.
Eight test series will be conducted during the three-month mission.
ASTRO and NextSat will conduct approach and docking maneuvers from
starting points up to 4.3 miles (6.9 km) away. Once docked, they'll
also swap propellants and trade and install batteries--the first
unassisted component exchange in space history. Tests will be
conducted
at different times of day to see if darkness on Earth's night side
confuses the imaging system.
If Orbital Express is a success, use of autonomous rendezvous and
docking systems could become a viable alternative to human-piloted
missions in the next decade.
"Automated systems will take ship-to-ship mating duties off the hands
of
busy flight crews," says AVGS flight software project leader Keith
Cornett of Marshall. "They can solve issues associated with tricky
repairs and provide cost-effective options for servicing permanent
satellites in orbit around the Moon or Mars."
Automated systems could also benefit surface operations, Lee notes,
particularly on the airless moon where global positioning systems
won't
work without relays. That "sensor highway," dotting the surface with
reflective markers to shine the way, could one day guide robots from
place to place - surveying, sampling and laying the groundwork for
human
expeditions to come.
"When it comes to exploring new worlds, robots can't beat human beings
for capturing the experience," Lee says. "But to make those human
missions possible, we need to set the stage as completely as we can.
Automation is crucial."
For more information about the Orbital Express mission, click here
<http://www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/oe.htm>. And stay tuned to
Science@NASA for updates about this week's launch and the mission to
follow.
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