Your Satellite Road Service, In Space, from DARPA and NRL

The key technologies and work on reducing the technological risk to allow autonomous spacecraft rendezvous and docking to become a reliable reality are being worked on currently by the Naval Research Laboratory’s Naval Center for Space Technology (NRL) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DRPA). As a matter of fact, the NRL achieved a key milestone toward this development of autonomous servicing of unaided spacecraft. The development, testing and ground demo of guidance and control algorithms allowed a robotic servicing vehicle to rendezvous and dock with customer satellites NOT pre-designed for docking, all autonomously.



As part of the Front-end Robotics Enabling Near-term Demonstration (FREND) effort, the DARPA/NRL team is advancing the state-of-the-art in spacecraft autonomous rendezvous and grappling. This is the “tow truck” service for nearly every satellite that is currently, or soon to be, in space. The benies? Tons of them… this service would allow satellites to operate far longer. Satellites could also be salvaged if they are in an inoperable orbit and be transferred to a new orbital position if they are unable to make that transit on their own. Plus, there is the capability of making certain orbital regimes safer by transferring derelict spacecraft or space debris into a graveyard orbit.



The algorithms continue to evolve through the integration of flight-ready robotics, electronics and software with evolving algorithms for grapple demos in the laboratory environment. Another major milestone toward the goal of reaching the highest TRL of 9 will be laboratory demos with fully flight-ready components. By the way, TRL 9 is reserved for systems that have been proven through successful space operations.



Both DARPA and NRL have contracted Alliance Spacesystems, LLC, of Pasadena, California to design and build the robotics to allow a servicing spacecraft to dock with satellites not originally designed for servicing. That company is best known for designing and building the robot arms for exploring Mars on Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The company I currently designing, fabricating and testing the first two robot arms for the FREND program, with the first robotic arm scheduled for delivery to NRL this moth. A second flight prototype unit (FPU) will be delivered in July of 2008. The program manager is Lt. Col. Fred Kennedy, USAF—Arlington, Virginia—August 28, 2007