TECHNOLOGY REPORT | AEROSPACE
TO BOLDLYLIFT
Aerospace is one of the most technically advanced sectors in the lifting industry. It requires absolute precision when handling components, and absolute assurance that the load will not fall. Julian Champkin looks at some of the solutions, on earth and beyond the atmosphere.
A
crane that will work on the moon? You cannot easily get more glamorous, or higher, high-tech than that. But manned missions
are planned to return there by 2025. Once they are on the moon, using astronauts in spacesuits to unload scientific equipment from their capsule, and then to manhandle
it around the surface, even in one-sixth of earth’s gravity, (or, looking further, on the one-third gravity of Mars) would seem an inefficient use of that highly-trained and hugely-expensive manpower. So NASA has designed a crane to help. Not that they call it a crane. Given NASA’s love of acronyms they actually call it a
Lightweight Surface Manipulation System, or LSMS. Current devices used for in-space operations are designed to work in orbit only - that is, in zero g - and so do not have the strength to operate on planetary surfaces. (‘Lifting’ in zero gravity is a term without much meaning anyway.) Traditional cranes are specialized to the task of raising off the ground rather than the manipulator- type positioning operations that would be useful on the moon or Mars. So the LSMS is a multi-functional machine that can perform as many different tasks as possible. The innovations incorporated into it allow
it to lower payloads to the ground over a significant portion of the workspace without the use of a drum-hoist mechanism. It functions like a hybrid of crane and robot manipulator, providing a rigid connection with the payload and very precise control of it.
Minimal weight of course is essential,
given the fuel-costs of transporting every kilogram of cargo into space. The LSMS uses a truss architecture with pure compression and tension members to achieve a lightweight design. Multiple spreaders arranged like spokes on a wheel allow the LSMS to maintain its high structural efficiency throughout its full range of motion. A real innovation is that rod portions of the tension members automatically lift off and re-engage the spreaders as the joint articulates, which allows a large range of motion while maintaining mechanical advantage.
Q How the LSMS looks on earth... (Credit: NASA)
www.hoistmagazine.com | February 2022 | 29
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