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NASA's Personal Satellite Assistants

Posted by michael on from the battlebots dept.

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.

5 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Cost of Space Missions by artlu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If droids can replace mundane human tasks on space missions, then Nasa is doing very well to spend their money on these things. Just think of it as a droid automating the stupid tasks of checking environmental controls, or outside activity. pretty cool.

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  2. Idea: by Paulrothrock · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why not put a small CO2 cartridge in it so that it could move through a space that has been depressurized? This would probably come in handy for, say, checking the status of a system after an accident.

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    1. Re:Idea: by Paulrothrock · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I meant inside the station. It's better than the poor thing wearing out its batteries spinning its fans in an airless environment, and safer than having the humans go in there.

      As for the airlock thing, I imagine the algorithm would go like this: 1)Wait for airlock door to open. 2) Enter airlock, 3) Move into position to exit airlock, 4)On depressurization, use CO2 jets to move out of airlock once egress door is open. Or you could have a human pilot it remotely, since it's already got a camera.

      Monitoring tank PSI and location (which I imagine it already does), you could make it so that you need to sudo anything that will put it somewhere it can't get back from. And timed bursts + a little math (for decreasing pressure in the tanks) = good enough control for emergencies.

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    2. Re:Idea: by Mondoz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The fans could still be used to orient the device. Spin a fan one direction, the device rotates in the other direction.

      This kind of gyroscopic attitude control has been used for years in zero-gravity environments.

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  3. Still just a pipe dream... by Mondoz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In order for this sort of thing to actually do the things it's described as being able to do, it's going to have to work and play well with the other systems onboard.

    One of the tools indicated on this device is an inventory scanner. Whomever is working on this project has yet to contact anyone in the inventory department about interfacing with the inventory software IMS (Inventory Management System) which uses its own barcode readers.

    This still has a long way to go before anyone sees them floating around any of the orbiting vehicles.

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