Design and Preliminary Ground Experiment for Robotic Assembly of a Modular Space Telescope

Large-aperture space telescope is the key equipment for studying the origin and evolution of the universe and various celestial bodies. Developing large-aperture space telescope is challenging and has become a priority in the field of optical engineering. Due to the mass and volume constraints of launch vehicles, it has to be designed and launched in modules and then assembled on-orbit by space robots. In this paper, we present a conceptual of 10-meter diameter modular space telescope together with robotic assembly strategy. To fulfill on-orbit assembly and maintenance of the space telescope, a novel assembly robot with a ring-shaped mobile base and a redundant stretchable manipulator is proposed. The time-optimal trajectory planning based on genetic algorithm is utilized to achieve efficient assembly. The preliminary ground experiment of assembling submirror modules of space telescope using the KUKA LWR iiwa-7 is carried to verify the feasibility of the proposed method, and the results show that the assembly task of telescope modules can be accomplished successfully with appropriate forces and torques.