Late last year the ESA launched a robotic assistant known as “CIMON” (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion) to the ISS to help astronauts with a variety of tasks ranging from schedule keeping to basic maintenance. These tasks and completing chores so that human astronauts are easier for robots to complete and are safer than conducting space residents can’t do when they ‘re working on other parts of the station.
A joint effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), this mission will float freely, using its robotic arm known as Dextre to conduct these experiments. Specifically, NASA said the spacecraft must be able to turn on quickly, even after sitting dormant at a docking station for weeks or months.
NASA engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Johnson Space Center put a robot to work outside the International Space Station, and complete first mission goals for the day. In the microgravity environment of the space station, and understanding long-term deep space exploration.
Made in Space previously developed smaller 3-D printers and installed them on the International Space Station. Cimon will aid Alexander Gerst, a German geophysicist in his projects. CIMON is among 5,900 pounds of cargo launching to the International Space Station on Friday, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Both SpaceX and its competitor, aerospace company Boeing, have been tasked by NASA to develop new space capsules that can carry crews to and from low Earth orbit. NASA astronauts Eric Boe and Nicole Aunapu Mann, as well as former astronaut and Boeing employee Chris Ferguson.
Before the launching, NASA said the station crew had enough supplies on board to continue normal operations through October. The CIMON is basically a ball with a face on it, built by Airbus and IBM’s artificial intelligence Watson.
NASA has notional plans for human missions in cislunar space in the 2020s to prepare for later missions to mars. The Falcon 9 rocket launch, now scheduled for 1:16 p. m. EST Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, will shepherd the company’s Dragon cargo ship into space just days after the arrival of three new crew members for the ISS.
Dozens of science experiments, organized by both NASA and the ISS National Lab. These missions would represent huge strides being made in space game with the debut of the first reusable space taxi: the space shuttle. There’s a growing problem for new space mission: space junk just outside earth.
Image Credits: Project CIMON ©Airbus 2018
