Robotic Assembly and Maintenance of Future Space Stations Based on the ISS Mission Operations Experience
- Paper number
IAC-07-B3.3.08
- Author
Dr. Richard Rembala, MDA, Canada
- Coauthor
Dr. Cameron Ower, MDA, Canada
- Year
2007
- Abstract
MDA has provided over twenty years of real-time engineering support to Shuttle (Canadarm) and ISS (Canadarm2) robotic operations beginning with the second shuttle flight STS-2 back in 1981. In this capacity, our engineering support teams have become familiar with the current mission planning and flight support practices for robotic assembly and support operations at mission control. This paper presents observations on existing practices and presents ideas to help achieve reduced operational overhead to present programs. It also identifies areas where robotic assembly and maintenance of future Space Stations could be done more effectively and efficiently. Specifically, our experience shows that past and current Space Shuttle and ISS assembly and maintenance operations have used the approach of extensive preflight mission planning and training to prepare the flight crews for the entire mission. This been driven by the overall communication latency between the earth and remote location of the space station as well as the lack of consistent robotic and interface standards. While the early Shuttle and ISS architectures included robotics, their benefits on the overall assembly and maintenance operations could have been greater through incorporating them as a major design driver from the beginning of the mission design. Lessons learned from the ISS highlight the potential benefits of Real-time health monitoring systems, consistent standards for robotic interfaces and procedures and automated script-driven ground control in future space station assembly and logistics architectures. In addition, advances in computer vision systems, advanced robotic tools and variable autonomy command and control systems offer the potential to adjust the balance between Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) and robotics tasks, offloading the EVA astronaut of some of the more routine tasks. Overall these proposed approaches when used effectively offer the potential to drive down operations overhead and allow more efficient and productive robotic operations.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-07-B3.3.08.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.