GMV Attends “Made for Space”, To Help Address Key Issues on the Future of Orbital Robotics

On November 22nd and 23rd, GMV attended the Made for Space conference. This UK event, jointly hosted by the Satellite Applications Catapult and Manufacturing Technology Centre, is focused on analyzing opportunities in the space industry.

With sessions oriented around key topics such as manufacturing of space industry components and materials, supply chain development, in‑space and in‑orbit operations, and “back to the future”, Made for Space brought together international experts from the space industry and advanced manufacturing.

GMV was represented at the conference by Juan Bevan, Head of Space Systems – Flight Segment & Robotics at GMV UK. He participated in the Out of This World session, with a contribution entitled The Future for Robotics in Space. His presentation was focused on answering three key questions from an orbital robotics perspective:

What will the robotic systems of the future be like?

What will these robotic systems do?

Does the technology needed to construct this ecosystem currently exist?  

Mr. Bevan answered these questions by explaining that the robotic systems of the future will be highly autonomous, or will at least be able to reduce the need for human intervention in the more repetitive and tedious tasks. He said that they will be integrated into an ecosystem where robots can perform micro and macro operations, including work at very large and very small scales, making in‑orbit assembly and manufacturing a reality.

He also emphasized that developments taking place at GMV have been able to identify and chronologically organize the blocks of technology that must be developed so that this vision of the future can come to exist. These blocks consist of the close proximity operations (CPO), which are based on algorithms that use a variety of techniques such as model-based tracking, machine learning (ML), and template matching. These capabilities are an essential part of the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) systems needed to carry out various missions focused on active space debris removal (ADR), in‑orbit assembly of large structures such as antennas, mirrors, and space solar plants, and provision of services such as refueling, repair, and inspection.

The Made for Space event is particularly important for the space industry because of its goal of establishing the needs of the robots that will autonomously build the space structures of the future, and for defining the technological blocks required for their development.