ATA ENGINEERING, INC. — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: Z3

Description

OSAM promises not only to be an enabler of missions involving large space structures, but also provides opportunity for reduced cost and risk, improved mission resilience and flexibility, and extended life through servicing, particularly in comparison to the current monolithic single-launch paradigm. However, several technical hurdles will need to be surmounted before the use of autonomous robots and systems to realize OSAM can become feasible. In particular, on-orbit assembly and manufacturing activities introduce significant uncertainty into structural behavior and integrity, and this uncertainty cannot be fully characterized a priori. To address this issue, ATA Engineering proposes to develop methods and software to identify post-build structural parameters and update OSAM robot control systems to ensure stable and robust autonomous operations. The proposed technologies utilize and interface with the robotic systems but are agnostic to their mechanical design and control system architecture, making the proposed solution particularly adaptable in this rapidly progressing field.