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quite a bit of activities going on on

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board the station today but not only

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inside but also outside

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as

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this week station controllers here on

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the ground at the goddard space flight

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center have continued some work that

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they started earlier this spring with a

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payload on the outboard truss section of

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the international space station this

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marks the second

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round of testings for the robotic

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refueling mission and joining me now on

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the phone from the goddard space flight

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center is joe mcguire who is the robotic

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refueling mission project manager

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jill i want to thank you first off for

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joining me today and was hoping maybe

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you could give us a quick overview of

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the robotic refueling mission real quick

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and what you guys accomplished a little

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bit earlier this spring

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yes great thank you for having me i

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appreciate the time to talk about the

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robotic refueling mission we're very

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excited about everything that's been

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going on on station the main objective

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of the robotic refueling mission is to

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demonstrate

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that we can manipulate standard

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satellite interfaces that weren't

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designed to be done robotically so

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the rrm hosts a variety of different

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standard satellite interfaces as well as

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a fill and drain valve on a spacecraft

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that in later this year we'll do an

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end-to-end task to show that we can

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open up the fill and drain valve and

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transfer fuel through the fill and drain

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valve

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but the tasks that we've been doing so

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far which we started in march and then

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have con been continuing

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um the last couple days is to do

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to show that we can remove some of

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standard caps and valves that you would

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find on a satellite and cut some of the

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safety wire holding those caps in place

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okay well i know you guys are working

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with the station's robotic arm and

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specifically the dexter or the uh you

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know the dexterous robot that likes to

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sit out on the end of that thing so why

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get a get a little more specific if you

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can water i know there are a number of

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tools on board the robotic refueling

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mission what are some of the tools you

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guys been working with this week

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okay this week we have been mainly

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working with our multi-function tool

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the spdm robot on the international

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space station

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on we started on tuesday night of this

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week

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the

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tool from

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the rrm housing and we went to pick up a

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series of different adapters that we

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have on board the multi-function tool is

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basically like a standard socket wrench

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that you can change out different

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sockets on the ground well we have a

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multi-function tool that can change out

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different adapters on board so the spdm

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robot pulled out the multi-function tool

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from the housing and then went and

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picked up the first adapter which we

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call the t-valve adapter and

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removed the

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the panel and then stowed the t-valve

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into the receptacle

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the only tool that we intend to use

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during this go around is the

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multi-function tool we have three other

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tools on board a safety cap removal tool

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a wire cutter tool which we used to do

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the tasks in march and then we have a

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refueling tool that we'll use to do the

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refueling task later this year

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okay we're taking a look at this

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animation right now and

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and again this is all controlled

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robotically from down here on the ground

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it's pretty fascinating stuff and i

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believe we're looking at the the

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multi-function tools so it's going

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through and removing a system of caps

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and

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that you would expect to find on a

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satellite and these are things that you

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know aren't built to actually be

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manipulated

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correct so the whole goal of rrm was to

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show that we can build an innovative

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tool to bridge the gap between the end

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of the robot and the satellite interface

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that wasn't designed to be

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manipulated robotically so the first

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task you see in the animation was the

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t-valve where you saw the multi-function

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tool grab the t-valve adapter remove the

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t-valve the second thing you saw in the

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animation was the ambient the

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multi-function tool grabbed the ambient

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cap adapter

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and that happened last night we

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successfully removed the ambient cap and

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restowed it into its receptacle

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and then also last night we grabbed the

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plug manipulation adapter and released

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it from its receptacle and later today

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when operations resume we will then

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transfer over to

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the payload and

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pull out a plug that is down in the

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inside the receptacle where the ambient

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cap that we removed last night is there

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is now a plug that's housed inside there

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we want to show that we can robotically

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remove that plug so the plug

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manipulation adapter is designed

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to

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plug and we will

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retract that plug just a few inches not

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or i mean half of an inch about

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it is safely controlled so that we don't

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have any debris flying on station but we

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will be able to show that we can get it

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past the o-ring that is installed in

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there

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okay and as you mentioned this is all

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kind of in preparation of some upcoming

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activities later this summer where you

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guys are actually going to be

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transferring some fuel over can you give

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us a quick preview

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of what's going to happen uh when that

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occurs

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yes the the hope is in the end of august

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we will get scheduled for another set of

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operations and

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we have a standard fill and drain valve

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or a fueling valve on a spacecraft on

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board the rrm and it is fully closed out

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like you would find it on a spacecraft

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before a spacecraft launches

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at the cape

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they fill the spacecraft with hydrazine

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and then because hydrazine is so highly

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combustible

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the fill and drain valve is closed out

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with a series of caps and the caps are

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then closed out with the series with

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safety wire in order to ensure that the

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valve does not open during launch

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so

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once that's all great for ground safety

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but now if you wanted to try to refuel

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that satellite in orbit you have to be

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able to cut all that safety wire and

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remove all of those caps

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so in august we will start

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one by one we will cut the safety wire

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on the tertiary cap remove the tertiary

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cap and stow it then we will cut the

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safety wire on the safety cap remove the

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safety cap and stow it and then we will

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the spdm robot will acquire our nozzle

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tool the nozzle tool will interface to

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the fill and drain valve

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and through a series of

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operations using the torque advance on

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the otcm band effector on the spdm robot

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we will then be able to

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acquire the thread onto the fill and

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drain valve

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open up the actuation nut and transfer

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fuel through that interface

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so we have a half a gallon of ethanol

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on board in our fuel transfer system

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that the back half of our payload has

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the the fuel tran what we call the fuel

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transfer system it has all of the

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the

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required hardware to

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pump and transfer the fuel through the

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interface

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okay well we are definitely going to be

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looking out for those operations when

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they occur a little bit later this

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summer

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and just kind of kind of as a conclusion

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what what kind of missions could

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something like this enable in the future

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i mean robotically refueling satellites

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isn't something that we really have the

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capability to do right now what what

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kind of possibilities would this open up

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well the the goal is that once we can

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demonstrate the technology on

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space station that we buy down the risk

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for

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future applications such as any

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government or commercial birds that

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would need refueling we could extend the

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life

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we could robotically interface to that

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spacecraft through like grabbing on

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autonomously grabbing on to say the

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launch adapter ring or the marmon ring

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then once we acquired that satellite we

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could then go through the robotic

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operations similar to what we're doing

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on station we can go through the robotic

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operations to

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refuel the spacecraft or we could in

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some cases maybe repair or

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deploy an appendage that you know didn't

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deploy such as a solar ray that got

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stuck after deployment we could go and

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grab the solar array

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and do a final deployment of that so the

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idea is is that we could

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change the paradigm of satellite

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servicing where

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we could then send a robot vehicle up

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and do this with a robot and extend the

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life of

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spacecraft either again by refueling or

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servicing them and the hope is that

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we will also be able to aid in like the

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future exploration goals of nasa when to

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have robots and humans working together

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in space where

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you can extend the time that you can

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have

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servicing and exploration done with

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robots doing you know the jobs while the

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astronauts are sleeping similar to what

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we're doing on the international space

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station

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you can mult you can

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have accomplish more in a shorter amount

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of time by having the robots and the

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humans working together so we're hoping

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by doing these demonstrations that we're

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enabling the technology to move forward

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and do

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you think these things outside of space

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station in low earth orbit or in

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geosynchronous orbit or you know places

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asteroids you know places where further

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exploration where nasa wants to go in

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the future

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so really just adding a whole other

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dimension to human space flight even

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though everything's being controlled

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robotically and also giving a lot of

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satellites a second chance at life and

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potentially saving

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you know millions of dollars of

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replacing satellites for communications

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and other any

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uh function that satellites are put into

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orbit for nowadays

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well jill i want to thank you for coming

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on with us today we're really excited to

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be following along with the robotic

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refueling mission we'll definitely be

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looking out for you a little bit later

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this summer when you guys actually start

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fueling up

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sounds great thank you so much again for

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the opportunity and and thanks to the

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robot operators at johnson space center

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and the canadian space agency who have

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been doing a wonderful job working

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through all of our tasks and and being