Caltech robot makes history by assembling the first structure in orbit without astronauts
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The big picture: These days, anything large that's heading to orbit either gets folded up to fit inside a rocket or is assembled by astronauts once it arrives. A small robot from Caltech has now tried a third route. Up in low Earth orbit, it pieced together part of an antenna frame from loose struts and joints. Its creators say that makes it the first structure ever built autonomously in space.
The machine, called ASTRA, takes up roughly a cubic meter and packs a gantry arm, motorized parts dispensers and 11 cameras. Engineers also squeezed two finished sections of the frame inside before launch, so its first job in orbit was simply pushing those out.
After that, the fairly basic arm got to work, sliding along three straight axes to pull composite tubes...
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