Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

Servicing Technology Center (STC)

Robot operators conducting testing with an industrial robot arm and the RRM3 payload at the Servicing Technology Center at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Robot operators conducting testing with an industrial robot arm and the RRM3 payload at the Servicing Technology Center at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The STC has supported and continues to support International Space Station (ISS) operations, and was integral in developing, integrating, and testing elements of NASA’s Robotic Refueling Missions, or RRM.

The Servicing Technology Center (STC) has proven itself to be a staple of In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) flight hardware development.  

The STC has supported and continues to support International Space Station (ISS) operations, and was integral in developing, integrating, and testing elements of NASA’s Robotic Refueling Missions, or RRM. To support this work and technology development, the STC has three 7-Degrees of Freedom (DOF) industrial robots, and one 6-DOF industrial robot are used for a wide array of tasks from autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations tests between two spacecraft, grapple simulations, satellite servicing simulations, and the ability to simulate small-scale contact dynamics. 

An 8 by 10-foot Gravity Offset Table that weighs roughly eight tons is used to create a two-dimensional free-floating environment to imitate how an object will react to force in space. 

The STC also houses a variety of satellite and space payload systems, a metrology system, a one-ton jib crane and a two-ton gantry crane to help with testing and simulations.      

To learn more about these technologies visit NASA’s ISAM capabilities page. 

The Servicing Technology Center (STC) is managed by ETD’s Mission Engineering & System Analysis Division (MESA). Contact MESA for more information.