Daily Archives: October 28, 2014

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. NASA has pioneered new technologies on the International Space Station for years, but the space agency's latest technological twists are venturing into science-fiction territory.

For example, the next generation of camera-equipped, free-flying robots could usher in an age when remote-controlled gizmos check out the space station's far corners, unassisted by humans on board. But couldn't that open the way for a robot to go rogue, as HAL did in "2001: A Space Odyssey"?

"It's our job to make sure that doesn't happen," Jose Benavides, chief engineer for the SPHERES robotic flier program at NASA's Ames Research Center, told NBC News.

Benavides and other researchers provided an update on space station innovations on Monday during a televised forum at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. SPHERES which is short for for "Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites" ranks as one of the station's longest-running tech experiments.

Astronauts have been testing the gas-propelled, beachball-sized satellites since 2006, but just recently the SPHERES devices have been rigged up with Android smartphones to enhance their vison and intelligence. The station's three spaceballs can now use a Kinect-style 3-D scanning system to map their environment.

Sometime next month, the flying robots are due to venture out of their home base in the Japanese Experiment Module for the first time, Benavides said. Eventually, they'll be given the run of the entire space station.

Suppose Mission Control wants to check out an anomalous reading on one of the space station's displays. "Without having to bother an astronaut, the ground operator can navigate the SPHERES over to take a look," Benavides said.

The robot can also be sent to look for, say, a missing wrench while the astronaut who lost it is otherwise engaged. "A lot of the astronauts' time has been spent looking for things," Benavides explained.

This SPHERES robot has been equipped with a smartphone to enhance its navigational capability. This free-flying robot is propelled in zero-G with compressed carbon dioxide gas, but future free-fliers are more likely to use ducted fans or compressed air.

Meanwhile, Benavides and his teammates spend a lot of their time working through even the most unlikely scenarios for example, a stray gamma-ray blast that somehow scrambles the SPHERES software to make sure a flying robot won't turn into a mini-HAL. "Even if all the wrong things happen, it can't hurt anybody or do any damage," he said.

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To Infinity! NASA Kicks Up Space Station Tech

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va., Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Private space company Orbital Sciences Corp. was set to a rocket a Cygnus cargo ship into space on Monday this week, the latest of NASA's regular International Space Station resupply missions, but the blastoff was postponed until Tuesday after a stray boat drifted into the launch zone.

The company's Anteres rocket ship was scheduled to take off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia on Monday evening. When a boat appeared downrange of the takeoff site, officials were forced to call off the launch plans.

"This was strictly a range issue this evening that terminated the count just 10 minutes before the scheduled liftoff time at the end of a 10-minute window," NASA TV commentator Rob Navias said during a webcast yesterday.

Engineers will reattempt the launch of the cargo ship on Tuesday night at approximately 6:22 p.m. NASA officials say the launch could be visible, weather permitting, up and down the Eastern Seaboard, from as far south as South Carolina and as far north as Massachusetts. The launch will be broadcast live on NASA TV.

Frank Culbertson, former NASA astronaut and now executive vice president of Orbital Sciences, brushed off any concerns about the pending launch. He congratulated launch team members for their work leading up to the planned liftoff and shrugged off the boat-caused delay.

"That's just spaceflight," Culbertson told Space.com.

Tuesday's launch will be the second of eight launches the company is contracted to carry out for NASA -- an arrangement worth $1.9 billion. Earlier this year, NASA awarded a $1.6 billion contract to SpaceX to launch 12 unmanned resupply missions.

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Space station resupply launch delayed by drifting boat