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it was 10 years ago today that spheres

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those bowling ball sized experimental

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satellites were first tested on orbit

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since then they've tested everything

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from rendezvous and docking to sloshing

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liquids to even student robotics

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competitions now to add to that legacy

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is the next generation robotic free

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flyer called astrobee set to fly to the

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station in 2017. i spoke with the

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project manager chris provencher at ames

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research center to get the buzz on the b

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master b is a free-flying robot that

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we're developing for inside the space

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station it's like a b

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like a b actually yes busy as a b and

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buzzing around like a b wow

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this this robot we have three main

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things that we want to accomplish with

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it

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free-flying camera inside the space

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station

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to help flight controllers and payload

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controllers on the ground have better

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situational awareness into what's

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happening inside the vehicle right now

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when they want to see inside the space

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station there are some camcorders set up

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but those are in fixed locations so this

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would really empower them to get the

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view that they want by being able to fly

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this robot around with an hd camera and

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to see what they need to see

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so what does it look like

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so is it like the sphere stuff or are we

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talking about something totally

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different uh it's it's about the size of

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spheres so spheres is is more rounded

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we're looking at something that's

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actually cube shape about 12 inches per

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side so right now we're still in the

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design phase

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we've identified all the capabilities

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that we wanted to have and we're working

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on a design to meet those capabilities

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and we've been doing prototyping along

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the way as well

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where'd the idea come from

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the idea is to really help with with

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humans uh on their missions so we're not

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developing a robot to perform robotic

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missions we want a robot that can help

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crews on their human exploration the

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most limiting resource is crew time

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and so the idea is to take over some of

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the tasks that the crew do to let them

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focus on science and experiments and the

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research and put over some of the more

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tedious tasks onto robots

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so in theory they could be performing an

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experiment and this little astro b could

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be over their shoulder

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filming what they're doing right exactly

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one of the things that we wanted to do

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is mobile sensor tasks on the space

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station right now the crew has to do a

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lot of things to survey the environment

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inside the space station to see if it's

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safe

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for example they have a

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sound level meter a handheld meter that

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they measure sound levels to make sure

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it's not getting too noisy and dangerous

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for their hearing so that's something

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that the robot could do

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they measure air quality to make sure

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that the co2 is getting scrubbed out of

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the out of the air properly so if we put

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that sensor on the robot that's another

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thing that the robot could do

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another example is we're working with a

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group on automated inventory management

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so there are thousands of pieces of

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equipment on the space station that have

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to be tracked and you have to know where

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it is

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um so right now we're working with a

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group to uh they're looking at putting

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smart tags on pieces of equipment and

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then having readers that can track where

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those pieces of equipment are and part

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of their solution is to have a

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free-flying robot with an rfid reader

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that can look for lost pieces of

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equipment so we're working with them on

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that as well you guys control it from

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the ground or how to control we do

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control it from the ground or can be

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controlled by the crew

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either way it's remotely controlled and

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one thing that we're trying to do is

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make this robot as autonomous as

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possible we don't want the crew to have

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to pull this robot out of a locker and

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set it up

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it kind of defeats the purpose so we

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want this thing to be able to fly around

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inside the space station without the

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crew having to supervise it to

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accomplish its tasks so as part of that

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that goal we are also building a dock so

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you know sometimes we call it the room

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buffer space right so we'll have a dock

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inside the space station where recharges

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its batteries and then is able to undock

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via remote control and perform the task

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all under the supervision of ground

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controllers and not having to interrupt

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the crew

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and this plays on a rich heritage from

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you guys at ames in the robotic

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capabilities yes so actually for the

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past few years we've been doing tests uh

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with spheres which is another

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free-floating object on space station

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we connected smartphones to it so that

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we could establish a link to the ground

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and we tested a remote control from the

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ground so yeah we do have some

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experience with this we've been working

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with

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jpl on this project and we've also

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you know nasa has mechanisms for

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engaging small businesses so right now

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there are three small businesses that

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are working on developing appendages

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that would attach uh to the robot uh

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which is pretty neat and so we're also

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starting to do the same thing with

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academia have universities propose what

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they would attach to the robot

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when this project started one of the

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first things we had to do was name it

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and so we held a public competition to

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to name the robot and come up with a

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mission patch for it and it was really

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inspiring to see all the creative ideas

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that were submitted

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and that's how we got the name astro b

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because when we described what it would

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be like people thought of a bee buzzing

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around inside the space station staying

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busy so that's where the name astro b

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came from and it was just a really great