Thursday, January 24, 2013

Phoenix rising: DARPA’s plan to repair communication satellites in orbit

http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/01/22a.aspx

Suggest check out the various links and short video clips presented, all of which can be found at the DARPA sites.

The plan is to repair dead satellites by snipping, clipping, and replacing --- but remember this a DARPA funded program. Not necessarily bad.  We have DARPA's help with  Information Processing Techniques Office which has helped make the Internet what it is.  But, hmmm ... watch the videos and let your mind create your own science fiction alternate history.
- LRK -

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http://www.kurzweilai.net/phoenix-rising-darpas-plan-to-repair-communication-satellites-in-orbit

Phoenix rising: DARPA’s plan to repair communication satellites in orbit

January 23, 2013
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Satellite servicing robot replaces defective electronics in nonworking communication satellite (credit: DARPA)
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DARPA’s planned Phoenix program is intended to develop and demonstrate technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) at greatly reduced cost.
Today, when a communication satellite fails, it usually means the expensive prospect of having to launch a brand new replacement communication satellite. Many of the satellites that are obsolete or have failed still have usable antennas, solar arrays, and other components that are expected to last much longer than the life of the satellite, but currently there is no way to re-use them.
The Phoenix program envisions developing a new class of very small “satlets,” similar to nano satellites, which could be sent to the GEO region economically as a “ride along” on a commercial satellite launch, housed in a payload orbital delivery system (PODS).
A separate “tender” (satellite servicing robot) is also expected to be built and launched into GEO. Once the tender arrives on orbit, the PODS would be released from its commercial satellite host to become part of the tender’s “tool belt.”
The tender would be sent to a nonworking satellite to salvage the usable parts, replacing the defective electronics with the satlet and creating a functioning communication satellite.
snip
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As noted at SpaceRef
- LRK -

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Phoenix Rising: New Video Shows Advances in Satellite Repurposing Program


Inserting new capabilities into a satellite is no simple task. Doing so as that satellite hurdles through space 22,000 miles above the Earth is a bit more challenging still. DARPA's Phoenix program, which hopes to repurpose retired satellites while they remain in orbit, seeks to fundamentally change how space systems could be designed here on earth and then sustained once in space.

This video illustrates some of the program's technical progress since it began in July 2012. As performers demonstrate the progress of their work in the lab, an artist's simulation of a fully-realized Phoenix demonstration scenario runs in the background to help illustrate how the technology would be applied. Demonstrations include flight-capable robotic arm manipulation with simulated space contact dynamics, tool development for the robotic arm with unique gripping and adhesion capabilities, autonomous robotic control software and hyperdexterous conformable robot modules in operation, among others.

snip
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So PHOENIX RISING at DARPA
- LRK -

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Hmmm, PHOENIX RISING, DARPA to send repair satellites to dead satellites.

Communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), approximately 22,000 miles above the earth, provide vital communication capabilities to warfighters. Today, when a communication satellite fails, it usually means the expensive prospect of having to launch a brand new replacement communication satellite. Many of the satellites which are obsolete or have failed still have usable antennas, solar arrays and other components which are expected to last much longer than the life of the satellite, but currently there is no way to re-use them.

The goal of the Phoenix program is to develop and demonstrate technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in GEO and demonstrate the ability to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost.  Phoenix seeks to demonstrate around-the-clock, globally persistent communication capability for warfighters more economically, by robotically removing and re-using GEO-based space apertures and antennas from de-commissioned satellites in the graveyard or disposal orbit.
snip 
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DARPA Phoenix Satellite Servicing

Published on Jun 27, 2012
This video depicts DARPA's Phoenix program. Learn more at http://go.usa.gov/whV (8 min.)


Check out this artist's depiction of how a retired satellite's still usable antenna might one day be salvaged and turned into a new space asset as part of DARPA's Phoenix program. The goal of Phoenix is to develop and demonstrate technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in GEO to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost. By robotically removing and re-using GEO-based space apertures and antennas from de-commissioned satellites in the graveyard or disposal orbit, space "junk" could become space "asset."
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The traditional process of designing, developing, building and deploying space technologies is long and expensive. Through Phoenix DARPA seeks to hasten the insertion of emerging technologies into space system development at much lower cost. 
Critical to the success of the Phoenix program is active participation from the international and non-traditional space communities involved in vital technical areas such as: 
  • Radiation tolerant micro-electronics and memory storage 
  • Distributed “wireless” mobile platform solutions for ad-hoc connectivity and control Industrial electronic control systems 
  • Terrestrial micro-miniature guidance and control measurement units 
  • Industrial robotics end effectors and tool changeout mechanisms and techniques 
  • Computer-assisted medical robotics micro-surgical tele-presence, tools and imaging  
  • Remote underwater imaging/vision technologies used in the offshore oil and gas drilling industry 
  • Terrestrial manufacturing of high volume micro-electronics and computer data storage 
  • Terrestrial thermal management design technology of electronic devices and systems 
  • Low-cost industrial manufacturing of high volume sheet metal and other structural materials 
  • Additive manufacturing on various structural materials  
The first keystone mission of the Phoenix program in 2015 plans to demonstrate harvesting an existing, cooperative, retired satellite aperture, by physically separating it from the host non-working satellite using on-orbit grappling tools controlled remotely from earth. The aperture will then be reconfigured into a ‘new’ free-flying space system and operated independently to demonstrate the concept of space “re-use.”
snip
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Surgically clean, minimal debris at GSO. (geosynchronous orbit)
:-)
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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