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March
9, 2007: Last night an Atlas V rocket carrying the
Orbital Express satellite servicing demonstrator thundered
away from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, soaring
to low Earth orbit to begin an intensive, three-month demonstration
of automated rendezvous and docking capabilities.
If
the mission is successful, NASA engineers say, those capabilities
could become a critical element of America's future space
endeavors, providing an alternative to some human-piloted
missions in the next decade. (For more information on this,
see Science@NASA's "Look
Ma! No Human Hands!")
"It
was a picture-perfect launch," says James Lee of the
Marshall Space Flight Center. "We're excited and proud
to see Orbital Express reach orbit."
Above:
An Atlas V rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral on March
8 carrying Orbital Express. Photo credit: United Launch Alliance.
Orbital
Express is actually two satellites: the Autonomous Space Transport
Robotic Operations (ASTRO) service vehicle, and the Next-generation
serviceable Satellite (NextSat). The pair will circle Earth
in tandem, docking and undocking as they practice on-orbit
refueling and satellite repair techniques. They'll also trade
and install a functional battery and computer – the first
unassisted component exchange in space history.
Key
to these maneuvers is a compact state-of-the-art automated
guidance system known as AVGS (Advanced Video Guidance Sensor)
developed at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Lee is the
AVGS project manager, and he's looking forward to the intense
field-test his system is about to receive:
"We
hope to demonstrate the critical role that these automated
rendezvous and docking capabilities are sure to play in America's
next-generation space infrastructure."
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DARPA, the central research and
development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense,
manages the Orbital Express Program. The Boeing Company of
Huntington Beach, Calif., is DARPA's prime contractor for
Orbital Express. The Marshall Center developed the AVGS technology,
delivered the flight software and conducted performance tests
for Orbital Express. The AVGS system hardware was built by
Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.
Author: Rick Smith
| Editor:
Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
|
