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Satellite Servicing Demonstration

The Hubble Servicing Project goes to work
on other Satellites
(Page 6)


Page 5 is here.

Installation onto Station and On Orbit Ops


Our first glimpse of our module after the ride into space.
It all looks complete!  No missing tools.


After launch, our first transfer is from Shuttle to a temporary location on the SPDM robot.
This is a wide shot of us being held by the space walking astronaut on the end of
the big Space Station arm.  We were transferred to the Dextre
robot on Tuesday 7/12/2011.


View from the WVS (aka helmet cam) of the drive bolt being turned
during our installation onto the EOTP platform.  This is the
temporary stowage location on the Dextre (SPDM) robot.


Here we are stored onto our temporary location on Dextre.  It also shows almost the
entire view of the latter robot.  The two manipulator arms are on the bottom right.
One is holding a big white box, called CTC (Cargo Transport Container).


This is the astronaut using his camera to shoot an image of himself.  The reflection on the
visor shows what he is looking at, and it shows RRM!  On the outer edges, you can
see the round helmet of the astronaut.


On July 15, 2011, the President of the United States mentioned us in his
call to the astronaut crew!  Fast forward to 3:10 to hear it.

Transcript:
POTUS : I understand you guys are also doing some important mission work up there... I understand there is something about an innovate robotic refueling demonstration.

Sandy : Yes Mr. President, we have a piece of equipment on board that is a technology demonstration unit for the SPDM to work... to show and prove the technology to robotically and remotely service satellites.  We are hoping with the work that we will be able to do with the test bed here on Space Station it will lead us to further advance our robotics capability.

POTUS : Well that is terrific and it is a good reminder of how NASA technology and research often times has huge spillover effects into the commercial sector and makes it all that much more important in terms of people's day to day lives.


On Sept 2 2011, Dextre picked us up from the EOTP for our transport
to our final location on the Space Station.


Here we are located on our final location.  This is known as ELC-4
(Express Logistics Carrier #4).  The EOTP is shown here empty.


To congratulate us, we received a call from astronaut Mike Fossum while
he was still on Space Station.  Mike is the one that installed us onto the EOTP.

We operated the Dextre robot from the ground from the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston, Texas.  This is the same building from where I supported the Hubble Servicing Missions.  The person doing the robot control has the console name of ROBO, and sat in the Flight Control Room (FCR).  Operation of the robot occurred while the crew is asleep and with the Space Station thrusters disabled.  This prevents any shaking of the end of the robot.

Crew sleep starts at around 3pm Eastern Time, and it took us about four hours to set the RRM onto the ELC-4.  Nine hours had been scheduled for this operation, as a result, we had to wait another five hours until midnight before we could proceed with the "activation", or powering up of RRM.


Later that night, at around midnight, we were activated, and power was
turned onto RRM for the first time.  The green trace on the screen behind
me shows that all the data looked good and as we expected.


For the 2011 Christmas season, we prepared this video that
explains how Santa can make all those stops in one night.

RRM on Huffington Post
In October 2012, Huffington Post featured this video from ISS showing
Superstorm Sandy.  As the camera pans over (around 4:02), RRM photobombs the shot.

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