Canada's MD Robotics is responding to a sole-source request for proposals from NASA for a dextrous robot to perform the proposed Hubble Space Telescope robotic servicing and de-orbit mission. Because time is short the preferred option is to use the company's two-armed special-purpose dextrous manipulator, Dextre, which is already qualified and scheduled for launch to the International Space Station in 2007.
NASA's Goddard Space Center is studying the feasibility of building a Hubble robotic vehicle (HRV) for launch by expendable booster in late 2007. The plan is to conduct a single mission that will both prepare the Hubble for safe deorbiting and to extend its life by augmenting batteries and changing gyroscopes.
The HRV has two main parts, a de-orbit module (DM) and an ejection module (EM). After an autonomous rendezvous, a robotic arm on the DM would capture a grapple fixture on the space telescope and berth the HRV to the Hubble. MD Robotics says the grapple arm would be based on its Space Shuttle and ISS remote manipulators. After berthing, the grapple arm would extract the dextrous robot from the EM. The two-armed dextrous manipulator would then connect the HRV and Hubble batteries in parallel to augment power; replace the wide-field/planetary camera with an improved instrument housing new gyros; and replace the Hubble's corrective-optics instrument with the cosmic origins spectrograph.
Instruments removed from Hubble would be stored in the EM. After completion of the servicing mission, the grapple arm would store the robot and itself and the EM would separate from Hubble. The DM would remain attached for battery/gyro augmentation and to perform the controlled re-entry of the space telescope, probably into the Pacific, at the end of its extended mission.
Source: Flight International
