Altius Space Machines Signs Contract to Develop Single-DOF STEM Arm for Space Situational Awareness and Oscillation Damping For the DARPA Phoenix Technologies Program
Altius Space Machines of Louisville, CO is delighted to announce that we have signed a contract with DARPA to provide engineering services as part of the DARPA Phoenix Program. Associated with Altius Space Machines in this contract is ROCCOR LLC. of Louisville, CO., Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation of Pasadena, CA and The University of Colorado at Boulder, CO. The goal of the Phoenix Technologies Program is to develop and demonstrate technologies to enable repurposing valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in geosynchronous orbit and demonstrate the ability to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost.
Altius will be providing DARPA with engineering services to develop and integrate a storable tubular arm (STEM) for use as a platform for situational awareness cameras and lights, and as a tool to reduce unwanted vibrations on parts of the target spacecraft caused during the component removal and repurposing operations.
The STEM arm utilizes a composite material that forms a tubular shape as it unrolls from a stored coil. This allows a long arm to be deployed and retracted into a compact package. The STEM tube and deployer hardware will be developed by Roccor LLC. Mounted on the end of the arm will be a camera/sensor suite to be developed by Ecliptic. The University of Colorado intends to explore contact compliance control calculations and robotic control software necessary to damp out any unwanted oscillations in the target spacecraft.
About Altius Space Machines, Inc.
Altius Space Machines is a Louisville, Colorado based space technology company founded with the goal of reducing the barriers to space commerce. Altius is currently developing rendezvous and docking solutions using its Sticky Boom(TM) non-cooperative capture technology, for space stations and propellant depots, manned spaceflight, satellite servicing, and other applications. For more information visit www.altius-space.com
Press Contact:
William Bolton
VP, Business Development
Altius Space Machines
303-827-1574
boltonw@altius-space.com
