BELTSVILLE, Md.— ATK’s [ATK] investment in its 15-month-old Robotic Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) Lab shows the company is serious about succeeding in the nascent market of satellite servicing, according to a company executive.
Defense Daily yesterday toured the approximately 3,600 square foot facility and caught a demonstration. ATK currently uses its RPO Lab for in-house research and development as it seeks its first customer for its ViviSat Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV). ATK representatives used two large, movable robots to demonstrate how the company tests its sensors and mechanisms to ensure that a satellite and the MEV could safely and properly dock together in space. ViviSat is a joint venture of ATK and U.S. Space LLC.
ATK spokeswoman Vicki Cox yesterday described satellite servicing as refueling, mission extension and harvesting in one form or another. Cox said companies and the U.S. government are exploring different approaches to satellite servicing, whether it is assisting satellites that run out of fuel, repairing satellites or harvesting: taking components from one satellite for use on another.
ATK also uses the RPO Lab to test software, called Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC), that Jim Armor, ATK vice president of strategy and business development for spacecraft systems and services, described as the brains of the operations. Armor said the RPO Lab is a “robust system” that a number of potential clients have expressed interest in using.
The purpose of the RPO Lab could be summarized as risk management and mission assurance.
“I’m talking really tough customers that know their business and if we can’t convince them that we have done our homework…they’re probably not going to buy from us,” Armor said yesterday. “This is a tough business and this is what is necessary to compete in this business, frankly.”
Armor would not specify how much it cost to build the RPO Lab, nor the annual cost to operate the facility, but Armor said the company has invested substantially in the satellite servicing market area, including the facility, because it believes it’s a viable market. ATK Spacecraft Systems Engineer Jeff Braden said the Lab uses about five to 10 employees regularly, but fluctuates depending on what the company is working on. Armor said the company is in the process of hiring 25 people to bolster the Lab’s capabilities.
ATK is not the only organization with a RPO Lab. Braden said the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has one in Washington and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in nearby Greenbelt, Md., also has one. Braden said one advantage of NRL’s facility is its bigger size, but ATK’s facility allows for air-bearing platform testing and dual moving robots, a feature he said neither NASA nor NRL’s facilities have. Braden said NASA has expressed interest in using ATK’s facility when it needs two moving robots instead of one.
ATK’s space systems group in Beltsville produces products and services including integrated satellite bus systems, multidisciplinary engineering services and integrated thermal control systems. Armor said the Beltsville campus was the only location considered for the RPO Lab as it hosts the company’s satellite production and is near NASA Goddard.