OE Mission Highlights

The highly successful Orbital Express demonstration mission concluded in early July with one of the most challenging operations of the mission - an autonomous free-flyer capture using a robotic arm, developed by MDA.

From a distance of 9 kms, ASTRO approached and circled NextSat, performing a final inspection of the two spacecraft. Next, the robotic arm tracked and grappled the free flying NextSat, joining the two satellites. ASTRO also used its robot arm to remove and re-insert a spare flight computer, which served during the mission as a primary sensor processor, in this final scenario.

This scenario marked the second successful grapple and capture of the NextSat free flyer by ASTRO using the robotic arm, with the first fully autonomous capture having been completed a week earlier.

Mission-critical operations involving robotics, software, avionics, sensors, cameras, lights and ground control solutions developed by MDA were integral in demonstrating the string of "world firsts" credited to the mission -

• Autonomous capture of a satellite by another satellite using a robotic arm
• Autonomous transfer of a battery Orbital Replacement Unit (ORU) from one satellite to another using a robotic arm
• Autonomous video survey of spacecraft
• Autonomous transfer of fuel to a satellite

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