Trade study, modeling, and analysis of robotic docking and berthing at the lunar orbital platform-gateway. NASA seeks to construct the lunar orbital platform-gateway over a period starting from 2020…

This is a delivery order contract awarded by NASA's Langley Research Center to the National Institute of Aerospace Associates (NIA), a non-profit research organization, to perform a trade study, modeling, and analysis of robotic docking and berthing at the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway. The objectives are to assess the sensing and controls requirements for supervised autonomous robots to handle docking, berthing, and maintenance operations on the unoccupied Gateway during long stretches of its lifespan, and to evaluate the state-of-the-art in planned Gateway robots to inform the design of new robotic tools. The $24,893 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract has a completion date of September 30, 2019 and does not utilize any set-aside designations. NIA frequently collaborates with academic partners on NASA research contracts and grants related to aerospace technology development.

Trade study, modeling, and analysis of robotic docking and berthing at the lunar orbital platform-gateway. NASA seeks to construct the lunar orbital platform-gateway over a period starting from 2020 and ending in 2028. Although designed to be a manned space station, IT is expected that the gateway will be unoccupied for long stretches totaling over 90% of its lifespan. Tasks such as docking, berthing, maintenance, and other manipulation tasks during the unoccupied phases must be performed by robots. Since the round-trip communication time is approximately 3 seconds, full teleoperation is not feasible, and some degree of supervised autonomy will be required. The objectives of this work are to: 1) perform a study including the modeling and analysis of sensing and controls requirements to enable supervised autonomous robots to perform docking, berthing, and maintenance operations, and 2) perform a trade study which will assess the state of the art in planned gateway robots to inform the design of new robotic tools to assist in docking and berthing.