[NYPost] A robot has built a structure in space for the first time, a milestone that could lead to constructing large-scale space systems.
The robotic truss builder worked to construct a 1.4-meters-diameter reflector antenna without the help of astronauts.
It could enable large-scale structures, such as huge reflector surfaces, to be built in space, able to harvest solar power and wirelessly transmit it to Earth’s surface.
The robot was conceived, designed, and built by Caltech researchers and funded by the US Department of War’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The truss builder, part of DARPA’s Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass-efficient Design (NOM4D) program, consists of an autonomous manipulator that picks up struts and joints held in nearby dispensers to repeatedly assemble identical sections, or bays, of a perimeter truss.
“This is the first time that a structure has been autonomously constructed in space,” says Sergio Pellegrino, team leader of Caltech’s Autonomous In-Space Tensioned Reflector Assembly (ASTRA) demonstration.
ASTRA is a robotic builder that has spent the last six months in space, working to construct the reflector antenna from composite fibre tubes, aluminium joints, and a Kapton reflective surface.
Caltech said: “According to DARPA, the autonomous robotic assembly is akin to piecing together a high-tech K’Nex or Tinkertoy structure. But the process of automating the build in space is nothing like child’s play.”
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