Phoenix Program Status - 2013

Abstract

The goal of the DARPA Phoenix project is to develop and demonstrate technologies to cooperatively harvest and reuse valuable components from retired, non-working satellites in GEO and demonstrate the ability to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost. Phoenix seeks to demonstrate around-the-clock, globally persistent communication capability for warfighters more economically by robotically removing and reusing GEO-based space apertures and antennas from decommissioned satellites in the graveyard or disposal orbit.The Phoenix project relies on innovations in three principal technical pillars to accomplish this challenging mission scenario. These pillars include a Servicer/Tender spacecraft with sufficient fuel and robotic dexterity to effect satellite-to-satellite operations; aggregatable cellularized spacecraft building blocks termed satlets; and a Payload Orbital Delivery (POD) system to bring new tools and satlets to the Servicer/Tender. Phase 1, a 14-month effort that began in June 2012, is exploring innovative design concepts and system trade spaces for each of the novel technologies to balance innovation with realistic development. A series of engineering tests are underway to evaluate the various challenges that Phoenix may encounter on orbit, including electromagnetic interference (EMI) and static discharge, flexible mode and stiffness issues, contact dynamics with both very large and small objects via a robotic arm, and latency effects associated with tele-operations control. This paper will present progress on hardware prototypes and systems analysis, as well as initial test and demonstration results.In parallel with the technology design and development work, a number of significant open international meetings have been held to facilitate discussions of the influence that policy, legal and regulatory issues have on satellite-to-satellite interaction. This paper will also provide a précis of the various external environmental issues affecting the Phoenix program and servicing in general, especially as they pertain to setting up a sustainable ecosystem for long-term satellite servicing.

Coordinated whole-body motion planning for a humanoid robot used on orbit and planetary surface

“…Moreover, DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is carrying out the Front-End Robotics Enabling Near-term Demonstration (FREND) [6] project to investigate the feasibility of using three robotic arms to grapple an existing cooperative or noncooperative satellite. Recently, the DARPA Phoenix project [7] will develop three-arm space robots to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components from retired GEO satellites and create new spacecraft.…”

Trajectory Guidance Using Periodic Relative Orbital Motion

“…The relative orbits can be divided into two broad classes based on minimum separation distance: those for which the minimum separation distance is on the order of or less than the size of the spacecraft involved and those for which it is significantly larger. An example of the former class is an inspection vehicle that follows the contours of a larger vehicle, such as the low design impact inspection vehicle (LIIVe) [18] or autonomous extravehicular activity robotic camera (AERCam) [19], or a servicer that grapples another vehicle for repair, such as Phoenix [20]. An example of the latter class is a cluster of small spacecraft designed for cooperative resource sharing such as System F6 [21].…”

Robotics and AI-Enabled On-Orbit Operations With Future Generation of Small Satellites

“…The DARPA initiatives, Phoenix [55] and Robotic Servicing of Geostationary Satellites (RSGS) [21] along with NASA's Restore-L [56] build on the success of Orbital Express [26] to demonstrate servicing capabilities with the Front-End Robotics Enabling Near-Term Demonstration (FREND) robotic arm [57]. The goals of these missions are to demonstrate the servicing of satellites that were not originally built for in-space servicing.…”