Scott Nicholas
Orbital ATK has helped NASA demonstrate a component of the Commercial Infrastructure for Robotic Assembly and Services project in a move to evaluate the platform’s capacity to assemble square bay truss portions for future space structures.
NASA said Thursday it showcased the features of Intelligent Jigging and Assembly Robot 2.0 platform during a ground demonstration held at the Structures and Materials Test Laboratory in the agency’s Langley Research Center.
The agency entered a public-private partnership with Orbital ATK in November to develop the commercial space infrastructure in support of robotic and human exploration objectives.
Dave Moore, project lead for NASA’s Technology Demonstration Missions program, said that NINJAR 2.0 is built to assemble pieces of framework to create a cube designed to be welded together in space.
CIRAS is part of space agency’s In-Space Robotic Manufacturing and Assembly project portfolio.
Members of the CIRAS development team also include Space Logistics, NASA Glenn Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center and the Naval Research Laboratory.
NASA noted that Erik Komendera, a research engineer at NASA Langley, will work with his team to incorporate the Strut Assembly, Manufacturing, Utility and Robotic Aid platform into the assembly process in preparation for NINJAR 3.0.
