A prototype of the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) robotic capture module system is tested with a mock asteroid boulder in its clutches at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The robotic portion of ARM is targeted for launch in 2021.
Located in the center’s Robotic Operations Center, the mockup helps engineers understand the intricate operations required to collect a multi-ton boulder from an asteroid’s surface. The hardware involved here includes three space frame legs with foot pads, two seven degrees of freedom arms that have with microspine gripper “hands” to grasp onto the boulder.
NASA and students from West Virginia University built the asteroid mockup from rock, styrofoam, plywood and an aluminum endoskeleton. The mock boulder arrived in four pieces and was assembled inside the ROC to help visualize the engagement between the prototype system and a potential capture target.
Inside the ROC, engineers can use industrial robots, a motion-based platform, and customized algorithms to create simulations of space operations for robotic spacecraft. The ROC also allows engineers to simulate robotic satellite servicing operations, fine tuning systems and controllers and optimizing performance factors for future missions when a robotic spacecraft might be deployed to repair or refuel a satellite in orbit.
Image Credit: NASA
- NASA: Prototype Capture System, Mock Asteroid Help Simulate Mission Sequence
They're building the most incredible Grappler ever seen and usually a grappler is something to help in the kitchen to reach out-of-the-way things but this one will be able to reach satellites. The intro describes what they may do after reaching them.
It's not clear why they experiment trying to grapple an asteroid of this size since it's not big enough by many orders of magnitude to be an Earth killer. Perhaps they test with an awkward shape to give the biggest workout to their prototype machine.
One reason for grappling asteroids is for their raw materials and that aspect has been considered many times for space mining. The change to that in the modern time is the increasing power of 3D printers so it's conceivable asteroid mining enterprises could be obtaining the raw materials and fabricating end products all at once.
At the root of that mining operation is the robot which goes off to fetch more asteroids for raw materials and NASA is building it. Perhaps the software which drives the final version will permit it to operate autonomously since your rough, tough space miner won't have time to screw around directing the robot's search. The robot needs to find the appropriate rock and bring it back so go off and do that.
Seeing these more outlandish types of experiments is encouraging for all the diverse ways NASA is approaching space flight.
Here's one reason why they do it.
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2 comments:
This concept reminds me of the age old question regarding dogs chasing cars. "What would they do if they ever caught one." Don't get me wrong, I see plenty of uses for the captured asteroid. What I've yet to see is how they intend to place the asteroid into a stable orbit once "grappled." To do that, they will need to overcome a tremendous amount of inertia, and I've not seen any realistic proposals yet that would accomplish that. I'm also somewhat skeptical in the ability to plant an object in a safe orbit. We've had a few too many man-made objects tumble out of control and crash to earth in my lifetime for me to trust our ability to control an object with the mass of even a small non-threatening asteroid. (Too small and it's not worth the cost of harnessing, so to be worth it, that asteroid will have to have a decent amount of mass.)
Inertia disappears in sci fi moves because it's weightless so anything is easy to move. In their example, that rock must have, say, at least five or ten tons of weightless mass so the robograppler is going to need a whole lot of horsepower and fuel to move it anywhere.
One of the simplest moves is to go out to grapple satellites and then commit suicide with them to get them out of orbit but even that takes great docking moves to match orbits and speeds.
They must have a practical idea for it but it's not all that clear how it will work out. I do like seeing them pushing out different twisted ideas when even as they do this they also build the monstro boster with Orion, plus all the other robos.
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