Spider-like robotic mobility for the construction of large antennas in space
- Paper number
IAC-05-C3.3.02
- Author
Dr. Leopold Summerer, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Year
2005
- Abstract
Currently, the largest man-made structure built in space is the international space station ISS. It was built essentially out of rigid components launched individually and assembled semi-robotically in space. This method is rather cost-intensive, requiring multiple launches, human interventions, rendez-vous and docking and a relatively long time for completion, resulting in massive structures. For applications like very large antennas and solar power satellites, new, more efficient and cost effective and less massive methods are required. One of the most promising concepts, especially for large antennas seems to be the "Furoshiki"-concepts, where daughter satellites span out a very thin and light-weight net forming a large planar structure. The elements of the phased array antenna need then to be positioned on this large net. Ideally these antenna elements would be launched within some sort of central element or the daughter satellites and then "walk" independently to their respective sites on the net. Different concepts of how to move on such a net have been studied. This paper presents the results obtained for a spider-like robot during ground and parabolic flight test experiments in preparation for the launch of a sounding rocket experiment in summer 2005.
- Abstract document