First responders for the space domain. Building the frontline service to safeguard all off-earth operations.
Created: 2022-12-19
Updated: 2024-07-25
Company - Lodestar Space
Product/Service
- Classification
- Miscellaneous
- Category
- Robotic Arm
Hardware
- Fields
- Large Space Structures
Space Construction Company
- Status
- Development
- First launch
- 2025
- Dexterity built for the harshness of space. Deploy physical capability at scale for the first time in the most challenging of environments. Our technology enables us to execute the most delicate and critical tasks in microgravity, withstanding radiation and extreme temperatures, while retaining unparalleled precision and accuracy.
- Supervised autonomy. That's why we designed a state-of-the-art computer vision system powered by our proprietary neural net model to enable our systems to autonomously interpret target structures and materials. It senses, computes, and executes reliable contact dynamics in response to client and operator needs.
- Designed for tasks that can't wait. We understand that the challenges faced by our customers are urgent. That is why we design our hardware in modular and flexible fashion. We are focused in achieving higher in-orbit penetration and decreased response times through shortening manufacturing and delivery time; providing supervised and customizable operator control, and consistent integration and operational support.
- Protecting national security in space. This growing dependence on space infrastructure means a growing vulnerability to breakage, collisions, and hostile activity. We're working with commercial and government partners around the world to safeguard the assets that underpin our democracies and our ways of life.
One of the competing teams for COSMIC LFAM ESA Grand Challenge since late 2023.
- The COSMIC LFAM ESA Grand Challenge, open to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) registered in ESA Member, Cooperating, or Associate States, offers a grand prize of 100,000 EUR. The prize provides ambitious teams the opportunity to redefine the trajectory of space manufacturing.
- As the COSMIC LFAM ESA Grand Challenge embarks on its two-year journey, the four competing teams stand on the precipice of a pivotal milestone – the first deliverable phase. Their collective mission is to adapt Caracol LFAM (Large Format Additive Manufacturing) technology and processes to the challenging space environment, unlocking the potential for on-demand manufacturing capability during long-duration space missions.
Lodestar’s robotic arm will be an orbital ‘first responder’ for satellites in need, 2024-07-25.
- Developing a platform-agnostic robotics system, starting with a dexterous robotic arm, designed to inspect and repair assets on orbit.
- Started out focused on 3D printing in space, but they realized that the market for that technology was not mature yet — and that terrestrial 3D printers are poorly suited for space. Instead, they started thinking about what those 3D printers would be attached to — the underlying robotics systems — and realized there was an opportunity to sell robotic services to commercial and defense customers.
- “The kind of ‘hair on fire’ problem we found in space right now is security,” Buchanan explained. “There are some fundamental issues to do with space security that we just don’t have, at least in Europe, to match what countries like China and Russia are doing. We realized there was something really important we could do for national security right now that would help enable future commerce in space.”
- The company has raised $2.5 million for its efforts, through a combination of non-dilutive funding from the U.K. Space Agency and a pre-seed round co-led by Inflection and Lunar Ventures, plus several angel investors. There are currently eight people on the team; its advisors include former SpaceX VP and ThinkOrbital CEO Lee Rosen and former Spaceflight CEO Curt Blake.
- The team recently conducted the first zero-gravity testing of its electrical, mechanical and vision system in microgravity, in partnership with the Aurelia Institute and supported by academics from MIT Space Exploration Initiative, and is aiming to conduct an in-orbit demonstration with an uncooperative space asset by the end of 2025. The first system the company aims to send to space would be a single robotic arm that would demonstrate grabbing and releasing a target object within two meters.
- Eventually Lodestar aims to have a high degree of interoperability — almost like a utility belt, with the arm able to swap in different end effectors or even a refueling interface.
- “We’re bringing the ability to inspect, protect, and repair high value assets in space in a way that’s truly scalable for the first time” Santini said. “As the industry moves towards proliferated capability, building a physical layer for autonomous interaction is going to be a bedrock technology that others will be enabled by.”
- The company’s grant from the UK Space Agency includes developing a flight-ready model of its robotic arm that will fly as a hosted payload on an unnammed partner space tug next year. Lodestar’s larger plans also include expansion to the U.S., no doubt to start catching the attention of the Department of Defense.
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