Orbital Express

Time-lapse video of a survey done by the ASTRO (Autonomous Space Transfer and Robotic Orbiter) satellite in the Orbital Express mission. The video is made of 1600 still frames taken by a camera on a remote manipulator arm attached to ASTRO, and is surveying the ASTRO and NextSat satellites, which are joined together (for now). The two satellites will be doing tests of several autonomous technologies over the next few months, including docking and undocking, propellant transfer, and transer of batteries and computers from one to the other using the robotic arm. The Orbital Express experiment is being run by DARPA.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0704/03orbitalexpress/
http://www.darpa.mil/orbitalexpress/

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• space
• orbital
• express
• DARPA
• satellite
• ASTRO
• NextSat

[subach]

The camera isn't crappy the lighting is. At first it was dark and a light was being used, then as it crossed into the day side of it's orbit it got blinded by the Sun's glare which is much worse outside the Atmosphere.

[socceroos123]

crap camera......but pretty nice. I wish i was up there in space.....