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University of Maryland Gemstone Team
Class of 2021

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Our Research

Which operational tasks can be partially or fully automated on the Gateway Station, and how can a robotic system accomplish those goals with experimentally verified safety and effectiveness?

For years, the success of space station activity and the potential of habitat success have been limited by the amount of time the crew has to dedicate to maintenance. For example, in the International Space Station, five out of six crew members must be focused on maintenance at all times while only one crew member can do scientific experiments and other activities that the International Space Station was designed for. Our goal is to create a model of a teleoperated robotic habitat maintenance system and use it to determine how successful robotics can be in completing various tasks on the ISS. We are then going to collect the information and research we have done for all of the tasks and put them into a database to lay the groundwork for a robotic habitat maintenance system that could be applied to a space habitat. The most likely application is the Lunar Gateway that is being constructed and launched by 2024. This would improve the amount of scientific work that crew members could accomplish during their time, whether they're at the International Space Station or a Lunar or Mars habitat. 

Contact Person: Sean Fowler

Phone: 443-591-0151 | Email: Sgfowler99@gmail.com

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