The Space Systems Laboratory (SSL) is part of the

Aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astrona ...

Engineering Department and A. James Clark School of Engineering at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the Flagship un ...

College Park, Maryland College Park is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and is approximately four miles (6.4 km) from the northeast border of Washington, D.C. The population was 34,740 at the 2020 United States Census. It is best know ...

. The Space Systems Laboratory is centered on the Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility, a ,

neutral buoyancy pool A neutral buoyancy pool or neutral buoyancy tank is a pool of water in which neutral buoyancy is used to train astronauts for extravehicular activity and the development of procedures. These pools began to be used in the 1960s and were initiall ...

used to simulate the

microgravity The term micro-g environment (also μg, often referred to by the term microgravity) is more or less synonymous with the terms '' weightlessness'' and ''zero-g'', but emphasising that g-forces are never exactly zero—just very small (on the ...

environment of space. The only such facility housed at a university, Maryland's

neutral buoyancy Neutral buoyancy occurs when an object's average density is equal to the density of the fluid in which it is immersed, resulting in the buoyant force balancing the force of gravity that would otherwise cause the object to sink (if the body's densi ...

tank is used for undergraduate and graduate research at the Space Systems Lab. Research in Space Systems emphasizes space robotics, human factors, applications of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

and the underlying fundamentals of space simulation. There are currently five robots being tested, including Ranger, a four-armed satellite repair robot, and SCAMP, a six-

degree of freedom Degrees of freedom (often abbreviated df or DOF) refers to the number of independent variables or parameters of a thermodynamic system. In various scientific fields, the word "freedom" is used to describe the limits to which physical movement or ...

free-flying underwater camera platform. Ranger was funded by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

starting in 1992, and was to be a technological demonstration of orbital satellite servicing.

was never able to manifest it for launch and the program was defunded circa 2006. For example, Ranger development work at the SSL continues, albeit at a slower pace; Ranger was used to demonstrate robotic servicing techniques for

's proposed robotic Hubble Servicing Mission.

History

The Space Systems Lab was founded at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1976, by faculty members Renee Miller and J.W. Mar. Its early studies in space construction techniques led to the

EASE Ease or EASE may refer to: Computing * Ease (programming language) * Enhanced Acoustic Simulator for Engineers, software for optimizing acoustics Health and medicine * Methylone, marketed briefly in New Zealand as Ease *Examination of Anomalous ...

(Experimental Assembly of Structures in EVA) flight experiment which flew on Space Shuttle mission

STS-61-B STS-61-B was NASA's 23rd Space Shuttle mission, and its second using Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. The shuttle was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 26, 1985. During STS-61-B, the shuttle crew deployed three communications ...

in 1985. In 1990, lab director Dr. Dave Akin moved the lab to the University of Maryland. The Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility, or NBRF, was completed in 1992. Current projects include the MX-2 suit, a simplified neutral buoyancy

spacesuit A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, ...

for use in EVA research; Power Glove, a prototype motorized spacesuit glove which will help reduce astronaut hand fatigue; and TSUNAMI, an apparatus to test human neuromuscular adaptation in different gravitational fields and different simulations of weightlessness.

Partners

Along with labs at

Carnegie Mellon Carnegie may refer to: People * Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name * Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie *Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polyt ...

and

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, the SSL is part of the Institute for Dexterous Space Robotics.

History

Partners

References

See also