Editorial: On-Orbit Servicing and Active Debris Removal: Enabling a Paradigm Shift in Spaceflight

Wilde, Markus; Harder, Jan; Stoll, Enrico

doi:10.3389/frobt.2019.00136

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…These are not new concepts, as in 1984 the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-51-A, brought back to Earth two old satellites no longer functioning (probably the first example of Active Debris Removal), and similarly the mission of the shuttle Endeavor in 1993 (and other following missions) provided essential fixes and services to the Hubble Space Telescope. However, the opportunity here is to develop robotic technologies (Wilde et al, 2019) able to perform these type of missions (Forshaw et al, 2016) at a fraction of the cost. The non-cooperative nature of the target, which could be tumbling, presents the first challenge to any approaching vehicle that has to rendezvous with this object.…”

Section: In-orbit Servicing and Active Debris Removalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current Challenges and Opportunities for Space Technologies

Aglietti

2020

Front. Space Technol.

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With the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the subsequent beginning of the space age, the progression of Space Technologies has, on the one hand, led to the development of hundreds of applications (Pelton et al., 2017) that use satellite data, including devices for everyday use, from satellite televisions to the Satnav in our cars. On the other, it has underpinned scientific progress in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences as well as in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Just to recall some of the highest public profile contributions from the field, satellite measurements showed the extent of the ozone layer depletion in the atmosphere and the existence of exoplanets and black holes have been confirmed, among many other scientific advances. The rapid progress made in Space Technology led to extraordinary accomplishments for the whole human race, such as the Moon landing. At the same time, these space missions have provided powerful iconic imagery for humanity, and photos like the Blue Marble (Wuebbles, 2012) have become universally recognized symbols of our planet and its extraordinary environment and finite resources. Although the spectacular progress in Space Technologies slowed down toward the end of the past century, together with that of the whole Aerospace sector, very important achievements continued to be made. These include the development of the International Space Station and the robotic exploration of other planets and celestial bodies, including landing on a comet! Through the years, space has often been identified as the new frontier, fueling the imagination of writers and film directors, who created visions (more or less plausible) of a future enabled by fantastic developments in Space Technologies. However, consistent with what history has shown us, is the fact that, after an initial phase of "exploration" of a new environment and consolidation of the relevant technologies, what follows is an explosion of businesses to exploit the new opportunities offered by the new environment. This is where we are today. Sometimes called Space 4.0, we are in a period that has seen a shift of paradigms, with changes of motivations, actors, and, indeed, technologies (PWC Report, 2019).

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Section: In-orbit Servicing and Active Debris Removalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current Challenges and Opportunities for Space Technologies

Aglietti

2020

Front. Space Technol.

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“…Cost effectiveness is manifest in the ability to relatively cheaply replace spacecraft components rather than launch a replacement spacecraft. Reference [ 5 ] indicates since 1957 roughly 5400 space missions have been flown, while nearly twenty-thousand space objects are tracked by the north American air defense command (NORAD), where over two thousand are rocket upper stages spent of fuel and over ten thousand additional items are classified as debris. Current proposals [ 6 , 7 ] indicate intentions for very large future constellations together comprising another twenty thousand objects in orbit.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Space Robot Sensor Noise Amelioration Using Trajectory Shaping

Kuck,

Sands

2024

Sensors

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Robots in space are necessarily extremely light and lack structural stiffness resulting in natural frequencies of resonance so low as to reside inside the attitude controller’s bandwidth. A variety of input trajectories can be used to drive a controller’s attempt to ameliorate the control-structural interactions where feedback is provided by low-quality, noisy sensors. Traditionally, step functions are used as the ideal input trajectory. However, step functions are not ideal in many applications, as they are discontinuous. Alternative input trajectories are explored in this manuscript and applied to an example system that includes a flexible appendage attached to a rigid main body. The main body is controlled by a reaction wheel. The equations of motion of the flexible appendage, rigid body, and reaction wheel are derived. A benchmark feedback controller is developed to account for the rigid body modes. Additional filters are added to compensate for the system’s flexible modes. Sinusoidal trajectories are autonomously generated to feed the controller. Benchmark feedforward whiplash compensation is additionally implemented for comparison. The method without random errors with the smallest error is the sinusoidal trajectory method, which showed a 97.39% improvement when compared to the baseline response when step trajectories were commanded, while the sinusoidal method was inferior to traditional step trajectories when sensor noise and random errors were present.

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“…The candidate inorbit missions include servicing, assembly, manufacturing, repairs, recycling, and Active Debris Removal (ADR) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Amongst in-orbit assembly missions, the assembly of Space-based Solar Power (SBSP) generation, Active Debris Removal (ADR), and large aperture space telescopes for astronomy and earth observation are gaining momentum [13][14][15][16][17][18]. The drive to establish advanced robotic systems for these missions is attributable to the escalating concern over human safety in the extremities of the space environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2024

OJRAT

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Robotics, Automation and Autonomous Systems are the main pillars for large-scale futuristic in-orbit missions. The state-of-the-art semiautonomous robotic manipulators in orbit are operated from the International Space Station and have limited walking features restricting their workspace. Hence, they cannot efficiently assemble complex infrastructures in-situ, such as space telescopes and space-based solar power. To overcome the technological gaps in the conventional space manipulators, the next generation of walking space manipulator, known as the End-Over-End Walking Robot (E-Walker), is introduced. The E-Walker's inbuilt redundancy and modular design offers enhanced workspace utilization, greater agility and maneuverability both for in-space missions and other terres-trial applications. The assembly mission Concept of Operations (ConOps) dealt in this paper is the modular Large Aperture Space Telescope (LAST) and presents the modelling of a fully dexterous seven degrees-of-freedom E-Walker with its gait analysis and control. The closed-loop performance of the E-Walker is analyzed under perturbed microgravity conditions using two widely used space-proven controllers a. The Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller coupled with the Computed-Torque-Controller (PID-CTC) and b. The robust H ∞ controller. The simulation results prove E-Walker's efficacy for accomplishing multiplex in-situ assembly of a large aperture space telescope.

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Editorial: On-Orbit Servicing and Active Debris Removal: Enabling a Paradigm Shift in Spaceflight

Cited by 9 publications

References 11 publications

Current Challenges and Opportunities for Space Technologies

Current Challenges and Opportunities for Space Technologies

Space Robot Sensor Noise Amelioration Using Trajectory Shaping

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