Future potential applications of robotics for the International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) will offer a unique infrastructure to enable scientists and engineers to conduct their experiments over a large timescale and to gain experiment results on a regular basis. The ISS offers both exposed accommodation of payloads and facilities inside the pressurised laboratory modules. For a number of reasons, manipulative tending of such payloads and the servicing of Space Station system elements cannot be completely performed by astronauts. This is why robotic systems are expected to play an ever increasing role in the operation of the ISS. This paper describes three robotics concepts which can be important enhancements of the currently approved ISS robotics infrastructure: a small relocateable system mounted in front of facility racks for tending of internal payloads, a medium size dexterous system to tend to payloads on an external platform, and an extension of the large European Robot Arm (ERA) by a dexterous bi-arm "end effector" for external system servicing. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.