NASA-funded program will use SPIDER robots to build a home for mankind in SPACE
NASA-funded program will use SPIDER robots to build a
home for mankind in SPACE
ORBITING robot spiders could be used to piece together
spacecrafts under a new NASA-funded project.
By Aaron Brown
PUBLISHED: 05:13, Tue, Apr 7, 2015
The system uses arachnid-like droids to construct large
objects in orbit around the Earth
The futuristic new system – dubbed SpiderFab – is being
developed by a company called Tethers Unlimited.
The system uses arachnid-like droids to construct large
objects in orbit around the Earth or further into the Solar System.
Our really long-term objective... is to eventually enable
the use of in-situ resources to construct the infrastructure in space needed to
support humanity's expansion throughout the solar system
Dr. Robert Hoyt
Tethers Unlimited CEO and chief scientist Dr. Robert Hoyt
believes the SpiderFab system could be used to build radio antennas, spacecraft
booms and solar arrays within the next decade.
But Dr. Hoyt also sees the robotic spiders helping
humanity toward a long-term goal – sustaining mankind as it travels across the
universe.
"Our really long-term objective for all of this work
is to eventually enable the use of in-situ resources to construct the
infrastructure in space needed to support humanity's expansion throughout the
solar system," Dr. Hoyt claimed last month, during a presentation with
NASA's Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group.
Dr. Hoyt believes the current method of manufacturing a
spacecraft – assembling everything on Earth and then launching the finished
product in one piece – is unnecessarily wasteful.
"It's a very expensive and time-consuming process,
and also, the size of systems is somewhat limited by the size of the
deployables that are possible to fold up and fit within a launch shroud,"
he said.
SpiderFab could cut construction costs by only launching
raw materials – such as carbon fibre – into orbit.
Limbs are used to piece together the materials and will
also allow the droid to grip the structure
"The primary [advantage] will be that we can deploy
apertures and baselines that are much larger than we can currently fit into
launch shrouds," Dr. Hoyt added.
"The payoff of that will be higher power, higher
resolution, higher sensitivity and higher bandwidth for a wide range of NASA,
DoD [Department of Defence] and commercial space missions."
Crafts built entirely in space have the potential to be
sleeker and simpler than current designs – as they do not have to survive the
trauma of launch.
This would lead to further cost savings, Dr. Hoyt has
predicted.
At the heart of Hoyt's ambitious project are the space
spiders – a multi-armed robot capable of making many of the structural elements
needed for the build, like an eight legged 3D printer.
Once the piece has been produced by its spinneret, the
spider can piece together the structural elements using its metal limbs.
"Under the NIAC and SBIR work (NASA's Small Business
Innovation Research) I think we've already validated the basic feasibility of
the key processes required" for the SpiderFab concept, Dr. Hoyt said.
Tethers Unlimited hopes to launch its first working construction
robot into space within the next couple of years.
"In a perfect world — if funding flowed and the
contracting process didn't drag on forever — we think we could get to be able
to build very large support structures for antennas and solar arrays, and those
sorts of components, in the early 2020s," Dr. Hoyt added.
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