This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A robotic truss builder that was conceived, designed and built by Caltech researchers has successfully built a structure in space—without the help of astronauts—for the first time. 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, the Joyce and Krent Kresa Professor of Aerospace and Civil Engineering, the Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa Department of Aerospace Leadership Chair, the executive officer for aerospace and a senior research scientist at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA. Pellegrino is team leader of Caltech's Autonomous In-Space Tensioned Reflector Assembly (ASTRA) demonstration, a robotic builder that has spent the last six months in space, working to construct a 1.4-meter-diameter (4.6-foot-diameter) reflector antenna from composite fiber tubes, aluminum joints and a Kapton reflective surface. 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. Although the team ran into time limitations and was only able to build the initial section of the antenna, the demonstration has shown the feasibility of the proposed assembly concept, which is scalable to very large perimeter trusses holding giant reflective surfaces. The space demonstration is the third phase of the DARPA project.
In the first two phases, the ASTRA team developed the concept and design methodology and then showed that the concept worked in laboratory settings on Earth. The space payload was completed, tested and delivered to the payload host, Momentus Inc., in less than 12 months. "Developing a payload of this complexity on such a short timeline was an enormous undertaking for our small team," says Pellegrino, who is also co-director of the Space Solar Power Project, which aims to harvest solar power in space and wirelessly transmit it to Earth's surface.
"As we wrap up the mission, we are finally able to start thinking about the new avenues of research opened by this demonstration." Scientists would love the ability to deploy large-scale structures such as reflector surfaces in space. These could be used as enormous mirrors for powerful space telescopes, allowing astronomers to observe ever more distant objects; alternatively, these structures could form the aperture of large radio frequency antennas. The size of such structures is currently limited by the size of rocket fairings.
Since the beginning of space exploration, there have been two methods to get large structures into orbit or beyond: to fold them up for launch and unfurl them in space, or to manually piece them together from sections sent up over a series of launches. There is now a need for a third option to get larger structures in space—building them right there. That is where the NOM4D program comes in.
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