TY - JOUR
T1 - On-orbit servicing
AU - Stoll, Enrico
AU - Letschnik, Jürgen
AU - Walter, Ulrich
AU - Artigas, Jordi
AU - Kremer, Philipp
AU - Preusche, Carsten
AU - Hirzinger, Gerd
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported, in part, by postdoctoral fellowship programs of the German Academic Exchange Service [Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD)] and the German Research Foundation [Deutsche Forschungsgemein-schaft (DFG)]. Furthermore, it was supported by DFG within the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 453 on ‘‘High-Fidelity Telepresence and Teleaction.’’ The authors express their sincere gratitude to the ESA ARTEMIS team for providing the opportunity to use the ARTEMIS relay satellite for telepresence experiments. Further, we are grateful to Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG, Munich, for their generous support on high-quality testing devices to the LRT Ka-band ground station. Further thanks go to Jacob Katz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Space Systems Laboratory.
PY - 2009/12
Y1 - 2009/12
N2 - You have a flat tire. You will have to buy a new car!" While on earth, nobody would follow such advice; in space, there are few other options than to replace a malfunctioning spacecraft. There are no repair shops and gas stations in the earth orbit. Because of the lack of so-called on-orbit servicing (OOS) opportunities, some malfunctioning spacecraft continue operational work with reduced or hardly any performance. The only general modification, which can currently be undertaken to an arbitrary spacecraft in orbit, is a software update. For example, the bispectral infrared detection (BIRD) satellite [1] started in 2001 with a configuration of four high-precision reaction wheels. Losing one after the other and with only one functional remaining, a significant effort has been made to optimize the attitude-control software with regards to the new constraints. Thus, BIRD is still operational, but other hardware failures, e.g., the inability to deploy solar panels, cannot be compensated by modifying the onboard software. In case of TV-SAT 1 [2], solar panel problems (the fastening bolt for the solar array had accidentally not been removed before launch) prevented the use of the Ku-band transmit antenna and subsequently any TV broadcast service after launch. The satellite had to be moved into a graveyard orbit.
AB - You have a flat tire. You will have to buy a new car!" While on earth, nobody would follow such advice; in space, there are few other options than to replace a malfunctioning spacecraft. There are no repair shops and gas stations in the earth orbit. Because of the lack of so-called on-orbit servicing (OOS) opportunities, some malfunctioning spacecraft continue operational work with reduced or hardly any performance. The only general modification, which can currently be undertaken to an arbitrary spacecraft in orbit, is a software update. For example, the bispectral infrared detection (BIRD) satellite [1] started in 2001 with a configuration of four high-precision reaction wheels. Losing one after the other and with only one functional remaining, a significant effort has been made to optimize the attitude-control software with regards to the new constraints. Thus, BIRD is still operational, but other hardware failures, e.g., the inability to deploy solar panels, cannot be compensated by modifying the onboard software. In case of TV-SAT 1 [2], solar panel problems (the fastening bolt for the solar array had accidentally not been removed before launch) prevented the use of the Ku-band transmit antenna and subsequently any TV broadcast service after launch. The satellite had to be moved into a graveyard orbit.
KW - Data relay satellite
KW - On-orbit servicing
KW - Physical human-robot interaction
KW - Space robotics
KW - Telerobotics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=73349120891&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/MRA.2009.934819
DO - 10.1109/MRA.2009.934819
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:73349120891
SN - 1070-9932
VL - 16
SP - 29
EP - 33
JO - IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine
JF - IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine
IS - 4
M1 - 5306923
ER -