Hubble Robotic Servicing and De-orbit Mission: Risk Reduction and Mitigation

Abstract

(Abstract) The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Development Office spent over a year developing the Hubble Robotic Servicing and De-orbit Mission (HRSDM) with the objectives to autonomously rendezvous with and capture HST, perform robotic servicing tasks (gyroscope and battery changeout and installation of scientific instruments), and ultimately de-orbit the observatory after its useful scientific mission lifetime. During this time, the HST Development Office established the feasibility of performing Earth-based telerobotic servicing of a NASA asset in Low Earth Orbit and advanced the technology readiness level of the following component technologies and techniques: autonomous rendezvous and capture (ARC Object Recognition and Pose Estimation algorithms that successfully measured the relative position and orientation of a robotic interface fixture to an accuracy of ± 2mm in position and ± 2.0 degrees in orientation (with respect to the camera frame of reference) at a distance of 45 cm from the camera; and the development of a space flight qualified 1K x 1K monochrome digital video camera system that is going to be used as part of a Relative Navigation Sensor experiment during the next shuttle-based servicing mission to HST.