The Orbital Express Demonstration Manipulator System (OEDMS), provided by
MDA Space, was the mission's integrated robotics solution. It consisted primarily of a 6-DOF rotary joint robotic arm, its flight avionics, the Manipulator Control Unit (MCU) and arm vision system, two On-Orbit Replaceable Units (ORUs) with their spacecraft attachment interfaces, a visual target and grapple fixture installed on NEXTSat, and the Manipulator
Ground Segment. The OEDMS was mounted on the ASTRO. It was used to capture and service the NEXTSat, the client satellite provided by Ball Aerospace. Using a robotic arm on-orbit, the Orbital Express mission demonstrated autonomous capture of a fully unconstrained free-flying client satellite, autonomous transfer of a functional battery ORU between two spacecraft, and autonomous transfer of a functional computer ORU. These operations were executed as part of mission scenarios that demonstrated complete sequences of autonomous rendezvous, capture, berthing and ORU transfer. All robotic operations were scripted prior to execution and performed autonomously as part of increasingly complex mission scenarios. The arm was commanded to perform its operations by either direct command from the ground, or autonomously by the ASTRO Mission Manager software. Scenarios in the early phases of flight operations incorporated a number of Authority to Proceed (ATP) pause points, which required a signal to be sent from the ground to authorize the ASTRO Mission Manager to continue the sequence. This allowed the ground operations team to verify that the scenario was proceeding as planned before continuing to the next step. Later scenarios incorporated fewer ATPs. The final scenarios were compound autonomous sequences, performing rendezvous, capture, ORU transfer and fluid transfer without any ATPs. ==End of mission==