Daily Archives: July 19, 2017

Space watchers have seen footballs, mini-soccer balls and water balls float through the International Space Station but never a drone ball. Now, new footage of a spherical Japanese robot shows it hovering and skittering around the Destiny laboratory.

The hope is that the robot will not only save the crewmembers time today, but could also improve robotic-human cooperation in future space expeditions, according to a statement from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

"Int-Ball," as the drone is called, would add to a growing legacy of robot "helpers" in space, including NASA's Robonaut 2 (which can throw switches and may eventually do simple spacewalk tasks) and the adorable, talking Japanese Kirobo, which made small talk with astronaut Koichi Wakata in 2013.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's JEM Internal Ball Camera, called Int-Ball, can record video in space while remote controlled from the ground.

Videos show Int-Ball, under the watchful eye of NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, moving near the walls, taking pictures of experiments and other regions in its vicinity. One shot shows a laptop lazily floating by. In another clip, Peggy Whitson's fellow NASA astronaut Jack Fischer playfully hides behind a camera, taking pictures of the drone.

If the drone works out as planned, it could reduce or eliminate the time astronauts spend taking pictures, an activity that takes up about 10 percent of their working hours right now, JAXA officials said in the statement.

NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer work on the International Space Station as Int-Ball observes, above.

It also would let teams on the ground, where Int-Ball is controlled, look at the crew's work from the drone's viewpoint, JAXA added. "The effective cooperative work between in-space and on-the-ground [teams] will contribute to maximized results of 'Kibo' utilization experiments," the agency said, referring to the Japanese experiment module on the space station.

Int-Ball launched aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft on the CRS-11 resupply mission June 3 and arrived at the space station June 5. It's now in testing to ensure that its images and video are recording information as planned, under control from the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center.

JAXA added that Int-Ball's camera which appears to be located between two "eyes" on the robot uses technology that has already been tested on past drones. The ball's exterior and interior were fully 3D-printed on the ground.

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BB-8 Flies? Adorable Japanese Drone Ball Tours Space Station - Space.com

National Institutes of Health (press release)

Space station project seeks to crystalize the means to counteract nerve poisons National Institutes of Health (press release) In June of this year, samples of the human AChE enzyme were sent to the International Space Station U.S. Laboratory by a team of CounterACT scientists led by Andrey Kovalevsky, Ph.D., Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Zoran ... Space station crystals to aid search for better antidotes for chemical ...UPI.com all 3 news articles »

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Space station project seeks to crystalize the means to counteract nerve poisons - National Institutes of Health (press release)

Now anyone can see Europe from an astronaut's point of view with this epic video shot from the International Space Station.

Captured with a 4K ultra-high-definition camera, the video shows a crystal-clear view of Europe, starting with Spain and flying east all the way to Budapest, Hungary. In the time it took to shoot this video clip a little over 3 minutes the space station traveled nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers). [Earth from Space: Amazing Astronaut Photos]

The space station orbits about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, and it captures the view down below with several onboard cameras. Traveling at about 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h) relative to the ground, it whizzes around the globe every 92 minutes. But the view is not the same every 92 minutes, because the space station's flight pathshifts slightly with each orbit.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station capture views of Zadar, Croatia; Vienna; Munich; and Salzburg, Austria.

The footage was recorded in August 2016, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, which oversees activities on the space station, released the video Monday (July 17). The groovy background music was produced by Swedish composer Joakim Karud.

Editor's note:Space.com senior producerSteve Spaletacontributed to this report.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her@hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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See Europe from Above in Breathtaking Ultra-HD Video from Space - Space.com

An adorable little robotic camera drone with wide illuminated eyes and a perpetually surprised expression has joined the crew of the International Space Station.

Known as Int-Ball, the bot can be controlled remotely by researchers on the ground, allowing them to capture images and video from aboard the artificial satellite.

Int-Ball contains actuators, rotational and acceleration sensors and electromagnetic brakes, which allow it to move around autonomously in zero gravity.

Developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), it was delivered to the ISS on 4 June 2017, and has already started feeding photos and video back to Earth.

JAXA claims that Int-Ball could eventually replace the need for astronauts to capture photos and record video aboard the ISS - tasks that currently take up about 10% of their time.

It could also enable more cooperative work between astronauts and researchers, as those on the ground would be able to see things from the same perspective as the crew.

During its time on the ISS, JAXA will be take part in experiments both inside and outside the space station, in order to test and improve its performance.

JAXA hopes that it will also help to promote the use of robotics technology in future space exploration missions.

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Cute zero-gravity robot is newest member of the International Space Station crew - Mirror.co.uk

An analysis by John Bucknell (x-Spacex senior engineer) describes an 11 meter diameter robotic vehicle with a 6,000-megawatt nuclear thermal rocket in a NTTR arrangement. The rocket would be single stage to orbit and would be immediately be able to refly after landing and refueling much like todays airliners. Even fully reusable Spacex rockets where all stages are resused would need to be re-assembled.

He describes SSTOH missions to place a 21 meter minor and 214 meter major diameter toroidal habitat in space, capable of full terrestrial gravity simulation by spinning at 3 rpm. The habitat begins as two thin films defining the interior and exterior surfaces of the torus, which is then inflated with lunar-sourced water in a 1m thick shell and allowed to freeze.

Access to space is driven by the economics of launch vehicles. A previously published rocket propulsion cycle called the Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket (NTTR) is able to achieve payload fractions of more than 45% to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This rocket is intended to be completely reusable for the launch mission as it is a Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) vehicle, which improves economics vastly. However, providing material to LEO is not always the most economical solution for permanent space-based habitation. In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) has been proposed as a method for avoiding the Earths gravity well for space-based construction with solutions proposed using Lunar, Martian as well as other resources.

The Air enhanced nuclear thermal rocket has been described a few at times at Nextbigfuture.

The proposed space station would be close to the size of Titanic but the space station would consist of mostly water ice

Water ice can be used as both reaction mass for propellant in liquid form and as structure in solid form. Nuclear Thermal rockets in particular are well-suited to in-space propulsion as they can add enthalpy to a variety of propellants for thrust without requiring processing plants to achieve chemically active reactants, thus saving on mission payload mass. A mission is proposed that leverages the NTTR vehicle as well as ISRU to construct an orbital habitat of Lunar water ice with a single terrestrial launch (Single Stage to Orbital Habitat SSTOH).

The lunar water ice is extracted from permanently shadowed regolith on the Lunar south pole, where the NTTR vehicle propulsively lands and places 54 tons of payload. The lunar payload is comprised of a small 30 MWth nuclear reactor and associated mechanisms able to extract sub-surface ice.

NOTE NASA will soon officially confirm that there is surface water ice at the lunar pole. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter did find evidence of frost on the moon earlier in the year, but there is a NASA paper that will be released soon that will confirm surface water ice.

The NTTR vehicle fills its propellant tank with 720 tons of lunar water, and using the water as a propellant delivers 400 tons of water to the habitat in LLO before returning to the Lunar water extraction plant. The reusable NTTR vehicle makes 100 trips to inflate the 40,000-ton habitat, with approximately one trip per 24 hours. Subsequently, the lunar water extraction reactor can be transported to the habitat as a power supply and the NTTR vehicle can push the habitat to a Lagrange point.

The 40,000 ton habitat would be just short of the max cargo of a Panamax container ship. The ISS weighs 450 tons.

In such a fashion, a single vehicle of low investment can produce a 199,000m^3 habitat within 5 months of launch.

In 2015, Bucknell presented the Nuclear Thermal Turbo rocket which added air-breathing to a nuclear thermal rocket. Bucknell design would have 1664 ISP. 60% more than the best prior nuclear thermal rocket designs.

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Plan for a mostly water ice space station 90 times bigger than the ISS - Next Big Future