The present disclosure relates to a low mass system for releasably securing a robotic arm to a spacecraft and also securing various payloads to the robotic arm and to each other, permitting the robotic arm to be both moved from one location to another suitably equipped location on a spacecraft to another and to allow the free end of the robotic arm to be secured to any payload also similarly equipped such that this payload may be manipulated by the robotic arm.

A system operating in a spacecraft includes a tank storing a propellant, a thermal receiver configured to change the propellant from a first phase to a second phase by providing heat to the propellant, and an energy conversion device fluidically coupled to the tank and configured to generate electric energy using the propellant in the second phase.

The present technology relates to an artificial satellite and a control method thereof that enable to ensure quality of a captured image while suppressing battery consumption. An artificial satellite includes: an imaging device configured to perform imaging of a predetermined region on the ground; and a management unit configured to change accuracy of attitude control in accordance with a remaining battery amount at an instructed imaging time, and configured to change an imaging condition in accordance with accuracy of the attitude control. The present technology can be applied to, for example, an artificial satellite or the like that performs satellite remote sensing by formation flight.

A method for autonomously controlling electric power supplied to a thruster of a spacecraft during electric orbit raising includes determining a state of charge of a battery onboard the spacecraft at an entry into an eclipse during each orbit of a plurality of orbits during the electric orbit raising of the spacecraft. The method also includes determining an electric power level used to fire each thruster of a plurality of thrusters during each orbit beginning after the eclipse, based at least on the state of charge of the battery, and that will provide a shortest electric orbit raising duration and minimize thruster propellant usage during electric orbit raising.

A method for autonomously controlling electric power supplied to a thruster of a spacecraft during electric orbit raising includes determining a state of charge of a battery onboard the spacecraft at an entry into an eclipse during each orbit of a plurality of orbits during the electric orbit raising of the spacecraft. The method also includes determining an electric power level used to fire each thruster of a plurality of thrusters during each orbit beginning after the eclipse, based at least on the state of charge of the battery, and that will provide a shortest electric orbit raising duration and minimize thruster propellant usage during electric orbit raising.

The Guideless Resilient Androgynous Serial Port (GRASP) mechanism provides an androgynous mechanical and electrical interface that can be tailored to the meet the requirements of a given application. Each mechanism is equipped with physical connections (spring pins) for both power and data transmission between modules.

A spacecraft propulsion system comprises two thrusters, each operating in accordance to a corresponding propulsion technique. A controller is configured to direct collected solar energy to heat a propellant for consumption in one of the two thrusters, or to generate electric energy for the other one of the two thrusters.

A system including a plurality of space-based satellites is disclosed where each satellite has at least one of an energy capture component and an energy generator component, an energy conversion component to convert the at least one of captured energy and generated energy into a power beam for wireless transmission, and a communication system to provide for each satellite in the plurality of space-based satellites to communicate between each other. The system also includes a controller to control power beam generation from at least one satellite of the plurality of satellites. Another system and method are also disclosed.

A wafer-scale satellite bus and a manner of making the same include using wafer reconstruction techniques to stack functional diced circuits onto each other and bond them. The disclosed techniques allow for a variety of functions in each die, including providing, without limitation: ground-based communications, attitude and propulsion control, fuel tanks and thrusters, and power generation. The wafers are initially manufactured according to a common wafer design that provides electrical and power interconnects, then different wafers are further processed using subsystem-specific techniques. The circuits on differently-processed wafers are reconstructed into a single stack using e.g. wafer bonding. Surface components are mounted, and the circuitry is diced to form the final satellites. Mission-specific functions can be incorporated, illustratively by surface-mounting, to the bus at an appropriate stage of assembly, on-wafer circuitry or instrument packages for performing these functions.

A flying capacitor multilevel (FCML) converter including a gate driver circuit comprising a DC-DC flyback converter having a plurality of isolated outputs. In various examples, the FCML circuit further includes a first control circuit connected to the FCML circuit determining the load current associated with a desired power output from the load; and determining a desired output voltage associated with the load current; a second control circuit that drives an inductor current (I.sub.L) through the inductor so that the output applies an output voltage comprising the desired output voltage; and a third control circuit obtaining a comparison of an average of the inductor current (I.sub.L) through the inductor with a predetermined reference current (I.sub.LREF) and setting the duty cycle so that the average does not exceed the predetermined reference current. Also described is the converter driving a load comprising a plasma and a propulsion system comprising the converter.