Treadspace| Let's Connect
Let's Connect
Stellar Connect
Summary
Space - The final frontier is evolving faster than ever. With increasing payloads of different missions and the ever-present limitation of rocket's carrying capacity, it is clear that we need to break into a new realm and develop technologies for in-space manufacturing and assembly. The future of Space Exploration and Space Settlement highly relies on the ability to be able to assemble things in space. Our project focuses on the possible method by which this can be achieved with easy to connect and disengage mechanism, Using robotic arms (Even Basic Ones) to align with real-time sensor communications.
How We Addressed This Challenge
Our project aims at simplifying the space assembly problem by introducing an innovative and easily deploy-able mechanism to connect two surfaces belonging to different elements of small to medium size. We developed an assembly process that can be standardized for future constructions involving small to medium objects. It involves robotic arms paired with sensors to align surfaces. A mechanism inspired by zip-nut technology to lock the surfaces and disengage at will.
Given we have two different objects that need to be assembled in space. They reach the orbit where the robotic arm is present for assembly using it's thrusters. The robotic arm then captures these objects and orients them for assembly. The connecting parts are brought close, during this phase the robotic arm is constantly communicating with the sensors placed on the connecting surfaces to align them in the correct orientation. The mechanism consists of a protruding shaft on one surface of a part and a hole on the other. The shaft has teeth and the hole has groves, in such a way as to facilitate unidirectional motion of the shaft into the hole (like a ratchet & pawl). In order to avoid cold welding different metals will be used for the hole and shaft. The groves of the hole are moveable and have springs behind them for facilitating disengagement. When one needs to disengage pressing a button will actuate the groves backward thereby releasing the assembly. Our design includes a plate at the assembly with dampers attached - (this is the part that is squeezed between two assembling surfaces), this helps eliminate any jigs and vibrations at the joint.
It is important as we need a reliable assembly process that can be scaled at will to major elements in space, that can be followed by all the different space agencies across the world. This enables for better collaboration and faster construction with cost-cutting and efficient results.
We hope to make space assembly as simple as building a lego project. Many complicated projects can be accomplished easily through a modular approach. For future scope, we plan on introducing a standardized method here for power and data exchange via the joint.
How We Developed This Project
Our team is composed of young mechanical engineers who are always on the run to learn new things. This challenge attracted us because there is currently a major problem in achieving higher payload launch capability into space. Take for example Hubble - it is a space telescope the size of a mini school bus. Though it has given us many breakthroughs in space exploration it is still not the most powerful telescope. All the powerful telescopes are on earth and we surely can't shoot them up into space with current rocket technology. Next comes the happening topic of Space Settlement (Elon Musk's Mars Settlement & NASA's Artemis Project). To push forward the developments of in-orbit space settlement, we need to first tackle the problem of space assembly.
We examined the current situation of in-space assembly. Thoroughly researched past and current technologies and probable future applications. This led to brainstorming on the pros and cons of the current technologies and which scenario we are to take up and develop for. Various ideas were generated and they were examined for their feasibility. Open source tools and software were used for developing this project.
Our Team and Their Roles:
Role of Sasank - Sasank researched on the probable future applications for in-space assembly and examined closely some major examples like star-shade & Deepspace gateway. He brings to the team his skills of 3d modeling and futuristic ideas. He designed the 3d models of this project and rendered them in free-cad.
Role of Suwarna - Suwarna researched bolometer and light sensors and proposed the idea of using this for alignment purposes in this project. She brings with her the skills to think out of the box and question our approaches critically and address any key problems.
Role of Komal Kedarnath - Komal has researched the mechanism of Zip-nut and devised the working of the current locking mechanism inspired by it. He brings with him the skill to search for content and create media. He helped make the video and brainstorm ideas on connecting mechanism.
Our team has overcome the challenge of communicating ideas over a distance without physically being there. This whole online experience was new and we had a lot to learn from it on collaboration and communication.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
Major inspiration taken from the space agency data were Zip-nut technology and SPIRE (sensor technology).
The probable future applications data provided served as an inspiration to think really beyond the current norms.
Project Demo
Presentation of our project : https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jksIevA9XRvDPN5vfrc3GphJXnU0oek1gXCMVNUdzwY/edit?usp=sharing
Video : https://youtu.be/MTrggze-tvc
Data & Resources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP4_Q7iIlb0
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exep/technology/in-space-assembly
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/science/zipnuts.html
https://asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/open-data/access-the-data.asp