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I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
sure seems like this could just as easily be used to perform on-orbit disassembly of a hostile nation's satellite?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your story, how did you get into robotics? Was it your first choice?
Oh gosh. I grew up in the middle of nowhere Virginia. Like many of you I was a nerd, and I had no outlet for that nerd-dom until I spent all summer working for money to buy a C64. I taught myself assembly, and was a high school intern at NASA Langley where I learned about parallel processing, was introduced to the idea that people would actually pay you money to program computers, and had a tour of their space roboti…
I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
What software are you all using for kinematics and dynamics calculations?
I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
Can you tell us what is out of bounds, so we know not to ask those questions? :)
I'm very hopeful that I'll get a strong technical paper through public release by the end of the year, ant at that point I could provide more detailed technical answers to things a HN audience would be interested in.
I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
How could this be applied to grab old satellites (of which there are, to put in in technical terms, "too damn many") out of orbit and bring them back to Earth for processing? Seems like some of the technology could be used to recycle space junk.
To get back into earth's gravity well from a circular orbit requires similar amounts of fuel. Getting things back to earth from low earth orbit is doable, if you have a heat shield, because you only have to dump enough velocity to start hitting the atmosphere, and atmospheric drag does the rest of the work.
But that doesn't work at GEO, because you're so high (22,000 miles as opposed to ~1,000 miles for LEO). It's very hard to get enough delta-V (read as "change in velocity", which is basically the amount of fuel you need per unit mass) -- you'd need something with as much fuel as the upper stage of the rocket you were launched on, plus you'd need a heat shield. Alternatively you could use electric propulsion, which takes a lot less fuel, but would also take, literally, a couple of years, during which time you're a hazard to navigation to anything in a lower orbit. Plus, electric thrusters of the size you'd need to do this aren't cheap either.
So we basically never do that. If you need to dispose of a derelict satellite at that altitude, it turns out to be much easier to raise its orbit by a few thousand kilometers.
So, nobody will be recycling space debris that lives at GEO any time soon, unless someone figures out how to do it in situ.
I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
It seems to me this device would lead to a revision in satellite reliability design and life calculations.
I'm the lead roboticist. Within bounds, I can answer questions.
Would this be able to boost Hubble or replace it's gyros? Does the satellite servicer need its targets to be constructed to some common standards, or is the new capability now leading to common standards? Was it built with a method for itself accepting refueling? It seems to me this device would lead to a revision in satellite reliability design and life calculations.
"Does the satellite servicer need its targets to be constructed to some common standards, or is the new capability now leading to common standards?"
We can do life extension missions on client spacecraft that were not designed to be robotically compatible. That's actually SpaceLogistic's primary business case.
The question of standards in the spacecraft industry is a huge question. It's being worked... by a lot of people, cue the obligatory XKCD reference.
"Was it built with a method for itself accepting refueling?"
We are, in fact, refuelable.
"It seems to me this device would lead to a revision in satellite reliability design and life calculations."
We hope so! Spacecraft are expensive in large part because they have to be designed to be incredibly reliable. The example I use is cars. If you had to design a car that could go for half a million miles without ever having a part replaced, you could. It would just cost a billion dollars. But that's how we design spacecraft today. IF we can create a "mechanic safety net", we might be able to bring the cost down significantly.