MIRROR robot reflects future of in-orbit assembly

2 min read · reported by ESA

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Like a climber, selecting and adjusting its grip on the next hold and slowly moving across a rockface, the robot seen here crawls across a dark laboratory clutching onto pieces of equipment to steadily build a structure underneath itself, piece by piece.

Crawling through the growing frame with two arms, the robot is able to manipulate the beams using its third, free arm to demonstrate how future orbital structures could be assembled in space.

Slowly and steadily, it moves across the camera’s field of view, each time connecting a new beam to the last. With the exposed beams building up into trusses, it resembles a partially-built scaffolding structure. When it’s not walking, the second arm can look into a point with a camera to have a better perspective for manipulation.

The robot shown here is called MARIO and is fully owned by Cranfield University. It is designed to support the in-space servicing and construction of large-scale structures. Here it is undergoing laboratory trials at Cranfield University to demonstrate the possibility of building a large space structure in space, autonomously.

The demonstration was testing the structural parts, from an activity called ISAAC (In-Space Assembly and Construction), showing how a large structure could be built in space, piece by piece, out of beams and connectors carried up as loose parts. Cranfield University has a laboratory where systems can be tested in a free-floating environment, validating how Multi-Arm Robots are able to connect the ISAAC parts under the weightlessness of space to support the construction of a structure.

Using large structures in space is essential for enabling bigger antennas, reflectors, solar power systems and modular platforms that are too large, heavy or too expensive to send up to space fully assembled.

ESA is developing the technologies needed to build these large space structures directly in orbit, bringing together robotics, structural design and assembly tools through three coordinated activities — MIRROR, ISAAC and, finally, RISE (Robotic Interfaces and tooling for Space-Based Solar Power Engineering)— that collectively demonstrate how future spacecraft could be constructed piece by piece in space, enabling larger and more adaptable missions than ever before.

(While this is not the original robot developed under the MIRROR activity, Cranfield recreated the system to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ISAAC structural concept.)

Published by the European Space Agency. View the original →