ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,246,858, issued on March 11, was assigned to Airbus Defence and Space Ltd. (Stevenage, Great Britain).
"Assembly apparatus" was invented by Elie Allouis (Stevenage, Great Britain), Alexander Hall (Stevenage, Great Britain) and John Carroll (Stevenage, Great Britain).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention relates to an assembly apparatus for assembling components of spacecraft in space. The assembly apparatus includes: a core platform; and a mobile platform including an end effector configured to perform an assembly or manufacturing task. The mobile platform is connected to the core platform by a tether. The core platform in...