<title>Teleoperation system for antenna assembly by space robots</title>

Abstract

Antenna assembly by space robots is an effective method for producing large antennas in space and it offers several advantages over using inflatable antennas and deployable antennas. The Communications Research Laboratory has developed such assembled antennas as a means to produce large space antennas, and the first on-board experiments were performed on Engineering Test Satellite VII, which was launched in 1997. In this paper, we outline the antenna- assembly experiments on ETS-VII and present initial experiments results.