TXR Tool Exchange and Refueling Interface — On-Orbit Servicing Docking Mechanism

Altius Space Machines is a US company (now part of ACE — Advanced Concepts Enabling, a Voyager Space subsidiary) that developed modular on-orbit servicing mechanisms to enable satellite refueling, upgrade, and life extension in orbit. The TXR (Tool eXchange and Refueling) interface shown is a standardized mechanical and fluid docking coupler that allows a servicer spacecraft to grapple a client satellite and transfer propellant (xenon, hydrazine, or other propellants) through a fluid coupling interface, as well as exchange modular payload components. TXR uses a passive conical capture funnel with internal latching and a hermetic fluid seal for propellant transfer. The compatible Dogtag passive target (a flat fiducial-marker panel bolted to a client satellite during manufacturing) provides the grappling reference without modifying the client’s main structure. The Magtag electro-magnetic docking mechanism allows capture of non-cooperative satellites through magnetically attractable surfaces. Altius received NASA SBIR and DARPA contracts for TXR development as part of the RSGS (Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites) program and ESA’s e.Deorbit heritage. ACE/Voyager continues Altius’s on-orbit servicing product line.