ASTRO satellite hooks spacecraft up with fuel whilst orbiting
by Darren Murph 
posted Apr 8th 2007 at 12:20PM
Launching a few birds into space is quite a feat in its own right, but pumping hydrazine fuel into an orbiting counterpart autonomously is really something to be proud of. Just about a month after launching the two unmanned crafts into space, the ASTRO satellite "successfully pumped vital hydrazine fuel into its NextSat counterpart as part of Scenario 0-1, the first in a series of increasingly challenging tests." The machines are currently taking part in the series of Orbital Express missions, and apparently, things are on the up and up thus far. Future tests are slated to include "autonomous undocking, proximity operations and re-docking," as well as installing a battery on NextSat with its robotic arm. We can't wait to see what happens when one of the two gets testy about refueling after hours, but we sure hope the galactic battle is somehow caught on tape.[Via Digg]
Filed under: Robots
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Henry @ Apr 8th 2007 1:17PM
So this is all automatic? Pretty cool. Rendezvous is no easy task.
Although then this will enable the robots to use our own satellites against us.
Smileypanda @ Apr 8th 2007 1:27PM
Satellites do it in space...
renai @ Apr 8th 2007 1:29PM
are these comments about robots taking us over serious? because if they are, i've lost my faith in human reason...
yes, it's just that stupid, guys, just that stupid...
schlomo @ Apr 8th 2007 1:57PM
that's cool and all, but where does ASTRO get its fuel from? are we going to have to create space-tankers now?
ReddBaronn @ Apr 8th 2007 9:38PM
Is NextSat going to attempt an annonimous live birth in 9 months?
Kedar @ Apr 8th 2007 1:43PM
Source? Your Digg hyperlink points back to this page...
ReddBaronn @ Apr 8th 2007 9:40PM
sorry for the double post, i meant autonomious, not annonimous oops
tehpwnmstr @ May 27th 2007 1:02PM
i for one accept our autonomous self-fuelling overlords of the future
ntrgc89 @ Jul 6th 2007 11:10AM
wow, yea, autonomous refueling/docking/undocking is cool,
that's why Russia figured out how to do it 30 years ago. nice one darpa, you're really on the ball