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assembly and maintenance, which
could dramatically lower construction
and deployment costs while extending
satelliteutility, resilienceand reliability,”
said RSGS program manager Gordon
Roesler. “Commercial and government
space operators have sought this
capability for decades. By investing
together, we can achieve a capability
that would be extremely challenging
to do individually.”
To formalize that collaboration,
DARPA aims to establish a public-
private partnership through which the
Agency would develop and provide
technical capabilities for transition to a
commercial space robotics enterprise
that would make cooperative robotic
servicing available to both military and
commercial GEO satellite owners on a
fee-for-service basis. DARPA seeks to
engage a commercial partner with a
strategic interest in this capability, and
an interest in providing services to the
Defense Department (DoD).
By executing the RSGS
program, DARPA seeks to:
Demonstrate in or near GEO that a
robotic servicing vehicle can perform
safe, reliable, useful and efficient
operations, with the flexibility to adapt
connection to satellites that are not
designed for docking, the FREND arm
has multiple joints enabling dexterous
movement and can carry and switch
among multiple generic and mission-
specific tools. DARPA will augment the
arm by adding advanced algorithms
for machine vision and supervised
autonomous robotic operations. Also
new will be onboard mission-planning
software and a variety of sensors
designed to provide reliable, high-
fidelity spatial orientation information,
essential for safely guiding the
spacecraft with its robotic systems on
orbit.
“In addition to these technical
advances, a key goal of the RSGS
program is to establish best practices
and voluntary standards for space
servicing operations,” said Brad
Tousley, director of DARPA’s Tactical
Technology Office, which oversees
RSGS. “Government and industry
need to work together to set safety
standards as well as to take advantage
of the servicer’s new capabilities.”
DARPA plans to kick off the public-
private partnership via a Program
Solicitation in the near future. Shortly
thereafter, DARPA will host a Proposers
Day to provide potential partners with
further technical and programmatic
details about the RSGS program. The
date of issue of the Solicitation and
the date and location of the Proposers
Day have yet to be determined. Both
will appear on the Federal Business
Opportunities website (www.fbo.gov).
to a variety of on-orbit missions and
conditions
Demonstrate satellite servicing
mission operations on operational
GEO satellites in collaboration with
commercial and U.S. Government
spacecraft operators
Support the development of a servicer
spacecraft with sufficient propellant
and payload robustness to enable
dozens of missions over several years
After
a
successful
on-orbit
demonstration of the robotic
servicing vehicle, U.S. Government
and commercial satellite operators
would have ready access to
diverse capabilities including high-
resolution inspection; correction of
some mission-ending mechanical
anomalies, such as solar array and
antenna deployment malfunctions;
assistance with relocation and other
orbital maneuvers; and installation
of attachable payloads, enabling
upgrades to existing assets. Satellite
operators would be able to purchase
these services on request to the
robotic servicing vehicle operator.
A critical component of the RSV would
be the robotic arm developed by
DARPA known as FREND. Constructed
to enable automated, cooperative