NASA's Personal Satellite Assistants

colonist writes "Wired News reports on the Personal Satellite Assistant (PSA), a spherical robot about the size of a softball that uses air jets to move in the microgravity environment of space vehicles and habitats. Described as a cross between Star Trek's tricorder and Star Wars' lightsaber training droid, the PSA has 'sensors for measuring gases, temperature, and air pressure' and performs 'video conferencing and can communicate with electronic support devices such as computer servers, avionics systems, and wireless LAN bridges'." We mentioned these a few years ago - looks like they've come a long way since then.

Comments

Other links of interest

[bonghorn]

More information is available here and here.

Kind of weird that they don't play up the fact it runs linux more.

More on Defense Tech

[noahmax]

There's a bunch more on how the Trek-inspired 'bot was built and tested here.

Earning my nerd stripes

[darth_MALL]

Wrong SW droid man! The IT-0 droid in that link is a torture droid. You will find the correct Training Remote Here. May the Force be with YOU!

also

[abscondment]

also being covered at some sites.

Re:Idea:

[EvilTwinSkippy]

The complexities of ingress an egress for a robot through an air lock are not simple algorithms.

Now assuming you get past that, something bumbling around in space needs armor to withstand micrometeorites, radiation shielding for the electronics, and some sort of thermal insulation to prevent the mechanics from tearing themselves apart when the sun side of the droid is at 400 degress and the shade site at -200.

CO2 propellent can't be proportionally controlled as well as air from a fan, so you loose fine positioning control. And you have the problem of running out or propellent.

I think that about covers it.