SMIRFF — Space Debris Capture Gripper

Draft: I wanted to explore whether a purpose-built gripper could reliably grasp an uncontrolled, tumbling object in orbit — a mechanical design problem very different from grasping something sitting still on a table.

Draft: Space debris in low Earth orbit is typically tumbling and has no cooperative grasp points, so any capture mechanism has to accommodate an irregular, moving target rather than a known, fixed shape.

Draft: A modeled debris target ("Aurora 7") represents the object to be captured. A multi-finger gripper, driven through a gear train and mounted on a frame, closes around the target, while an Intel RealSense D435 depth camera would provide the position and orientation data needed to guide the approach and grasp.

Draft: Designing gripper fingers that can close reliably on an irregular, uncontrolled object — the "grab part 4" family went through several revisions (4, 4 new, 4a new) before settling on a working geometry.

Draft: The design was built up as four separate SolidWorks assemblies (Assem1–Assem4), iterating the gripper fingers, frame and gearing across revisions rather than modeling everything in one pass.

Draft: A complete SolidWorks assembly and part set demonstrating the gripper concept, including the camera mount and a modeled debris target for fit-checking the capture geometry.

Draft: Multi-part assembly management in SolidWorks, mechanism design for gripping irregular objects, and how to plan for sensor integration (camera mounting and sightlines) early in a mechanical design.

Draft: Build a physical prototype, add real actuation and control software driving the gripper from the depth camera's pose estimates, and test against a tumbling target.