Conclusions Devices for maneuvering and precisely placing payloads are critical for efficient space operations  involving reusable assets or in-space assembly and construction. New missions and applications currently being considered, such as asteroid retrieval and redirection, asteroid mining, satellite servicing,  and small payload delivery to space stations can all benefit from having long reach manipulators that are  also light weight and have high dexterity. The limits resulting from the current state-of-the-art in long reach space manipulators are discussed and a novel new manipulator architecture, the TALISMAN thatdirectly addresses and mitigates these limits is introduced. By using a combination of lightweight truss  links, a novel hinge joint, tendon-articulation and passi ve tension stiffening, this new robotic manipulator  architecture achieves compact packaging, high strength, stiffness and dexterity while being very lightweight compared to conventional manipulators. There is a great deal of freedom and versatility in  designing manipulators based on this new architecture and accompanying details and options are discussed. A hardware test-bed was created and several different manipulator options were implemented  and tested. The results from the hardware assessment were used to rate and prioritize design options  and a specific configuration was chosen for further development. The design and operation of this manipulator prototype is presented along with the development focus of current research. The extreme versatility of the TALISMAN architecture is demonstrated by presenting two different (a long-reach and a compactly stowable) applications and summarizing the design and performance attributes of the resulting manipulators. Finally, tools are described that have been developed to perform structural analysis, size  structural members and estimate the mass of different TALISMAN implementations designed for different  mission requirements.  References 1. Hunter, J. A.; Ussher, T. H.; and Gossain, D. M.: Structural Dynamic Design Considerations of The  Shuttle Remote Manipulator System. AIAA 82-0762, pp. 500 - 505.  2. Kumar, P.; Truss, P.; and Wagner-Bartak, C. G.: System Design Features of the Space Shuttle Remote  Manipulator. Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress on Theory of Machines and Mechanisms 1979.  Published by the ASME, pp. 839 - 842.  3. Craig, John J.: Introduction to Robotics, Mechanics and Control, Third Edition. New Jersey: Pearson  Prentice Hall, 2005.  4. Doggett, William R.; Dorsey, John T.; Collins, Timothy J.; King, Bruce; and Mikulas, Martin M.: A  Versatile Lifting Device for Lunar Surface Payload Handling, Inspection and Regolith Transport Operations. Presented at the Space Technology and applications International Forum – STAIF 2008, Albuquerque NM, 10 – 14 February 2008. AIP Conference Proceedings Volume 969, Editor  Mohamed S. El-Genk, 2008 American Institute of Physics. 5. Dorsey, John T.; Mikulas, Martin M.; and Doggett, William R.: Preliminary Structural Design  Considerations and Mass Efficiencies for Lunar Surface Manipulator Concepts. Presented at the   AIAA Space 2008 Conference and Exposition, 9 – 11 September 2008, San Diego, California.  Available as AIAA-2008-7916.  413