Using the International Space Station as a Precursor to In-Orbit Robotic Servicing

Abstract

The recently formed Space Servicing Capabilities Project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is exploring in-space servicing of existing and future observatory-class scientific spacecraft, assessing robotic approaches to service space systems, and expending NASA’s understanding of servicing capabilities. The near-term plan is to carry out servicing demonstrations on legacy spacecraft subsystems using existing on-orbit robotic systems. Eight International Space Station-based experiments are described in this paper. The longterm plan is to conduct a pathfinder servicing mission on a legacy spacecraft after retiring some of the risk in these ISS-based demonstrations.