NASA will assemble spacecraft directly in Earth orbit

Regular readers of our site firsthandknow that mankind seriously intends to explore distant planets. Basically, that’s why SpaceX is developing a spacecraft for long-distance space flights, while NASA is designing a Gateway station for the temporary habitation of space travelers. Some groups of scientists have already figured out how to grow plants in space, but in addition to this, it would be nice for them to learn how to build new spacecraft right in orbit of the planets. Fortunately, this is exactly what Midar Technologies will do in mid-2020, which, at the request of NASA, will launch a robot into space that can assemble a satellite with communication antennas. But how will all this happen?

The space antenna assembly will look something like this

On the terms of the contract with an American companyMaxar Technologies agency NASA said in its official blog. The space technology developer received $ 142 million from the agency and thereby assumed responsibility for creating technology for assembling satellites and other equipment directly in Earth orbit. It is reported that a device equipped with several robotic limbs will be used for assembly.

Spacecraft assembly in low Earth orbit

It's about the Restore-L spacecraft,whose launch is already scheduled for mid-2020. He already has two robotic arms, however, as part of the new project, he will attach another additional limb five meters long. At the moment, it is known as SPIDER, which is an abbreviation of the expression Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot, which can be translated as "Agile robot for space infrastructure."

Do you know that NASA is even developing a space excavator?

If everything goes according to plan and the spacecraftwill successfully enter the orbit of our planet, it will assemble a three-meter antenna from seven segments. For this, as noted above, the SPIDER robotic arm will be used to a greater extent. The assembly of the communications satellite will be considered successful if it ultimately can communicate with the ground station and send and receive signals.

In addition, the Restore-L spacecraft withwith robotic limbs, he will try to assemble a beam about ten meters long in orbit. In particular, the researchers want to find out whether the robot can disconnect this part from the parent satellite and insert it back. Researchers believe that this will be the first step towards the construction of full-fledged space stations and ships in outer space.

If you are interested in the news of science and technology, subscribe to our Telegram channel. There you will find announcements of the latest news from our site!

By the way, did you have any deja vu? We talked about the Restore-L in 2016, when the NASA space agency commissioned its creation of Space Systems. At that time, there was no talk of assembling spacecraft in orbit around the Earth. But the apparatus was required to perform an equally important task as satellite repair. It was also believed that with further improvement, the robot would be able to collect space debris bit by bit, which today prevents scientists from exploring distant planets using ground-based telescopes.