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hi welcome to mission control houston

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today we're talking with chris

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provencher who is the project manager

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for the spheres satellite project uh

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that is uh been on the space station for

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a while long and storied history i guess

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so um actually chris if you could just

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start by maybe giving us a little bit of

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a history of the program

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well my robotics group at nasa ames

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research center

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is investigating the use of robots to

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work in human exploration missions so

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we're not looking to replace humans on

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their missions we're looking to enhance

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their missions and provide more value to

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them

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so specifically we're looking at the use

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of robotic free flyers so anything that

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they can float in space

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and we recognize that the spheres

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platform is a great opportunity for us

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to do some pre-flying uh robotic testing

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so the spheres is a free-flying

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satellite it's got um you know structure

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it's got a propulsion system it has some

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limited processing and

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can operate within a limited space on

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space station

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so it doesn't have everything to become

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a robotic free flyer

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but it is a great opportunity for us to

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do our testing

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where the idea to use this on the space

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station come from

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uh well the spheres predates my projects

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the spheres is a pr payload facility

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that involves

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many different payload users whoever has

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a need to do some type of zero-g testing

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on a free-flying satellite can apply to

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do their testing with it so that's run

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by the spheres program um so i'm with

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the smart spheres project so we are one

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of the many users of that uh of that

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payload facility okay so smart spheres

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that's the the ones that use the

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smartphones how did that come about

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what's what's the point of that right so

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the the spheres um though it does have

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propulsion in some uh processing and

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navigation system

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it doesn't do much other than fly around

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and for it to be a robot it needs to

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provide

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some some useful tasks to the space

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station so to do that we need to

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communicate with it uh we need uh some

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more processing uh we need to be able to

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control it

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and then it needs appropriate sensors

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for doing different types of tasks like

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cameras or other things so everything i

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just described is what you'd find in a

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smartphone so that was really a really

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low cost approach for our project to

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upgrade the satellite from spheres to

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smart spheres

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without having to invest in a lot of

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development so okay and y'all have had

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that up there for a while right but now

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it's time for an upgrade yeah so we we

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did a massive smartphone in 2011 and

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we've been able to control that robot

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from the ground and have the iss crew

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control it and it's been very successful

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um but this new smartphone we have is is

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actually quite impressive

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so great show and tell yes show and tell

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so

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i did mention that the spheres uh is

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constrained to a very limited operating

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environment on the space station it's

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only like a two meter by two meter by

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two meter cube that it it works in

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uh this smartphone is called the project

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tango google just announced this um as a

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prototype release project tango project

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tango okay um so it's it's not

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available yet in stores but it's

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available to some uh android developers

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okay what's uh what's really impressive

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about this is that it's got an ir

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projector it's so it's similar to some

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games that can see you your body moving

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this phone has that as well so it has an

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ir projector and then an ir camera that

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can see that projection so basically

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this phone can see in 3d

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wow also it has a wide angle lens and

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then a processor dedicated uh to visual

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odometry so

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this camera can see things uh edges

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corners uh just anything that's not

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really playing background and then it

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tracks all of the features that it sees

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from frame to frame and as the phone is

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moving those features

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uh change position in each frame and

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they can calculate how far it has moved

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so with the the 3d mapping and the

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visual odometry this this smartphone is

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capable of vision based navigation

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so i'm sorry what part is this

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smartphone here is it this or right so

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so actually the the white frame is what

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the regular smartphone looks like so

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we've modified this to operate on iss um

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we basically butterflied this phone open

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so that all the things that are

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typically on the back of your phone are

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on the same side as the touch screen so

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that they're all facing out and away

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from spheres okay um and then we built

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this bracket as well to to mate it to

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sphere i see okay and uh it seems like

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the the main um

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the main thing you're wanting to get out

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of this is the 3d

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camera is that right it's the navigation

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the navigation right which uses the 3d

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camera and why is that special well if

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you want a a robotic free flyer to do

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useful work on iss it needs to

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pretty much fly anywhere on the space

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station

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and so to do that it needs a very robust

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navigation system and we think this

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might be it

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okay but i guess

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you i if i understand correctly you've

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actually already tried this in zero

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gravity on a on an airplane flight here

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in houston and i think we actually have

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some video of that that we can show but

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how how did that go what did you do

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right so this this um this one was

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actually built to work on earth okay and

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it actually relies on a gravity vector

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so we've had to do some a lot of

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modifications to the software to remove

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um

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uh gravity from the equation so we're

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doing some zero-g parabolic flight

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testing out at ellington field and uh so

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far the tests are going real well we we

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still have yet to analyze the data and i

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guess what we're seeing here is the the

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smartphone attached to one of the sphere

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satellites right that's that's exactly

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what you're seeing and as we hit zero g

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we uh we release it in the in the cabin

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of the aircraft and uh and let it try to

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localize itself in zero g so okay and

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you said it went well well we're

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collecting the data we'll see how well

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it's working uh probably once we get

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back to ames okay well once you've had a

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chance to take a look at that

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assume it assuming it went well what's

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the next step when do you go to the

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space station the next step is space

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station and um we are supposed to launch

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on may 1st on orbital 2 and then this

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summer we'll have two activities with

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the iss crew to to see how well it can

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navigate through the space station okay

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well we look forward to seeing that in

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space and thanks so much for visiting us

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and telling us about this it sounds like