The TITAN robotic arm will enable inspections, repairs and modernization of satellites directly in orbit. It is a design by the Warsaw company PIAP Space, developed in a project of the European Space Agency. The engineering model of the arm has already been tested in an environment simulating orbital conditions.
There are several thousand active and inactive objects orbiting the Earth today, and this number is growing every year. Collisions and failures are more and more likely to occur in this increasingly dense space. That is why the development of automatic inspection and service technologies in orbit is now one of the priorities of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the entire space sector – it was recalled in a press release sent to PAP on Wednesday.
Previously, when a satellite worth millions of euros stopped working, it had to be deorbited and replaced with another expensive orbiter. Now, PIAP Space – a subsidiary of Łukasiewicz – Industrial Institute for Automation and Measurements – has announced the completion of construction and testing of the TITAN tool model.
“Thanks to the TITAN robotic arm (…) it will be possible to inspect, repair and upgrade satellites directly in orbit. (…) The project, carried out under an ESA contract worth EUR 2.6 million (…), has undergone a full set of tests in an environment simulating real orbital conditions. The technology is now ready for the next step – integration in space servicing missions,” the release reads.
As explained, TITAN can be installed on a service satellite, which will be able to perform inspections, capture another satellite or replace its parts, among other things. The arm has a range of up to 2 meters and is extremely precise – it has a positioning accuracy of 0.5 mm and an orientation accuracy of 0.1 degrees.
In addition, TITAN can be equipped with various tips, grippers and manipulators adapted to the specific mission. The device can be used for satellite capture, repair or refueling, among other things.
“TITAN is the most advanced robotic manipulator developed in Poland, and probably one of the most modern of its kind in Europe. We designed it to be not only precise, but also universal. Thanks to its modular architecture, it can be scaled to various applications – both orbital and exploration. What's more, appropriate structural seals will also allow it to be adapted to work in dusty environments – such as the regolith-covered surface of the Moon – which opens the way to its use in planetary exploration missions,” said Paweł Paśko, head of the Mechatronics Section at PIAP Space, quoted in the release.
Work on the TITAN design is ongoing, among others, as part of the IOSHEX (In Orbit Servicing HEXagonal module) project, carried out by SAB Aerospace together with ESA. The project assumes that the Polish robotic arm or its variants will assemble and disassemble used satellite parts and transfer them to the Space Rider ship – an unmanned, reusable space transport system. The IOSHEX module will remain in orbit as a service station, and Space Rider will transport new parts from Earth and take used ones back for recycling.
As we read in the press release, the first systems such as TITAN could be used in space as early as this decade.
The prototype of the device will be presented during the ESA Space Security Conference in Warsaw on April 14-15. (PAP)
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