Dextre Efficiently Refuels Concept Satellite tv and Bullets a Major Test for Space Robotics

Dextre, the Canada Space Company's automatic "handyman" on board the Worldwide Space Place (ISS), made space history last night by successfully refueling a mock satellite on the external of the station. Leading off the satellite's fuel tank was the critical task in the trial Robotic Refueling Objective (RRM), a cooperation between the Nationwide Aeronautics and Space Management (NASA) and the Canada Space Organization (CSA) to show how robots could assistance and refuel satellite on location wide to boost their useful life-time.

For RRM, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center developed module simulating a satellite, as well as customized equipment for Dextre. Since RRM functions started in year 2011, Dextre has conducted three sequence of assessments to show how a software could assistance satellite, which were developed never to be started out wide. In this newest set of functions, Dextre eliminated two safety hats, cut through two sets of slim maintaining cables, and lastly moved a small variety of fluid ethanol into the cleaning machine-sized component. The latter move was particularly challenging, since managing fluids wide required perfect perfection to prevent risky leaking. The specific resources built for the job permitted Dextre to close the relationships between the tool and the petrol device to remove the likelihood of leaking. Including to the level of problems was the petrol hose itself, which contributes extra causes that usually take Dextre's hands. It took the mixed skills of the experienced NASA and CSA robotics remotes to take off this first-of-a-kind space refueling display successfully and without any accident.

RRM is a important step in revolutionary automatic technology and techniques in the field of satellite servicing-saving troubled space components by refueling or renovating them before they become space trash. The ability to refuel satellite wide could one day save satellite providers from the important costs of building and releasing new alternative satellite. With over 1100 active satellite currently managing in the near-Earth environment (many of them worth hundreds of millions of dollars), and an extra 2500 non-active satellite still revolving about around the world, the benefits could be significant.
Source : CNET