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Droids on the ISS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the oh-i-hate-space-travel dept.

SpaceAdmiral writes "Inspired by Luke Skywalker, M.I.T. students have built five droids for the ISS. The orb-shaped devices will float around the International Space Station, maneuvered by compressed CO2 thrusters. The SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage Re-orient Experimental Satellite) will eventually be deployed as tiny satellites, but they first require testing aboard the ISS to learn to fly in formation. One has already been sent to the ISS and two more will join it soon."

36 comments

  1. I, for one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...welcome our new rotund orbiting overlords!

    (someone had to say it :-)

  2. Cool ! by darthgnu · · Score: 1

    I remember the Yoko Tsuno books had those on the Viniean ships, cool stuff. I would not have imagined that these kinds of machines would be feasible during my lifetime.

    --
    Freedom is strength, Ignorance is peace, War is slavery.
  3. I prefer by neonprimetime · · Score: 2, Funny

    The first SPHERE arrived on the ISS in April tucked inside a Progress supply rocket. (Remember, tiny satellites make good hitchhikers.)

    I prefer the young blondes myself

  4. sounds good, but by dario_moreno · · Score: 2, Funny

    do they have a "party mode" emergency button blaring "Feel the Energy" ?

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  5. Remotes? by parasonic · · Score: 3, Funny

    I guess that Jedi training will have to be added to the astronauts' checklist. They're going to need lightsabers now.

  6. Just one question.. by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 2, Funny

    *are batteries included?

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  7. Wouldn't compressed air have been better? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or Nitrogen? I'd think the scrubbers have enough CO2 to contend with.

    1. Re:Wouldn't compressed air have been better? by Darth_brooks · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nitrogen is flammable when combined with air. In an oxygen rich environment, I'd imagine it's even more dangerous.

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      There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
    2. Re:Wouldn't compressed air have been better? by Darth_brooks · · Score: 4, Informative

      whoops i'm a total farking tard. disregard completely, utterly and totally.

      Is it any wonder I failed chem?

      --
      There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
    3. Re:Wouldn't compressed air have been better? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      whoops i'm a total farking tard. disregard completely, utterly and totally.


      No problem. I wonder if this flammable nitrogen (~78vol-% of atmosphere) could be used as a rocket fuel on a blimp I'm designing. It's going to use iron-gas to produce lift, because it's the lightest element and gas at room temperature.

    4. Re:Wouldn't compressed air have been better? by Tx · · Score: 1

      whoops i'm a total farking tard. disregard completely, utterly and totally.

      No way pal, that one's coming back to haunt you. You shall henceforth be known as "the flammable nitrogen guy" :D.

      --
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    5. Re:Wouldn't compressed air have been better? by Darth_brooks · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Who knew flammable and inflammable meant the same thing?"

      --
      There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
    6. Re:Wouldn't compressed air have been better? by gstoddart · · Score: 1
      "Who knew flammable and inflammable meant the same thing?"

      When it first happened, it was news to me!

      Here I was happily thinking invincible, indestructible, and inflammable, and we standardize with the rest of the world and made it inflammable. Caused me no end of consternation. I suppose, it's good to standardize on something so important, but for some of us, the transition hurt our wee heads and took some time to get used to.

      You wanna really see something funny -- find someone old enough to remember when inflammable meant, NON flammable, then show them something which says non-inflammable. You can hear the ticking as they try to process what the heck that means.

      In my head it goes something like "un-not-burnable" with a short pause to decode it to the modern meaning of "won't burn". It's like non-indestructible instead of fragile or something.
      --
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  8. MOD parent INFORMATIVE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Very insightful post. I wish that I were jedi.

  9. Apples and Oranges by Feneric · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But there's a problem: Flying in formation is trickier than it sounds. Ask a crowd of people to line up single file, and they'll be able to figure it out and do it rather easily. Getting a group of orbiting satellites to do the same thing, it turns out, is extremely hard.

    This isn't really comparing two similar things. The human example is a 2D case on the ground with friction and easy maneuvering, the satellite one a 3D case in space where inertia rules the day. Ask a crowd of people to navigate little orbs into a line in open space and see how long it takes them.

    1. Re:Apples and Oranges by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Ask 5 pilots to fly in a formation. They can figure it out just as easily as 5 people on the ground. It requires a bit more skill as you have a third dimension plus speed to work out but every military trained pilot can do it.

      We just haven't developed the software and hardware to analize the required data fast enough. When we do projects like Bush's anti-ICBM missle defense shield will actually work reliably.

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    2. Re:Apples and Oranges by Feneric · · Score: 1

      Ask 5 pilots to fly in a formation. They can figure it out just as easily as 5 people on the ground. It requires a bit more skill as you have a third dimension plus speed to work out but every military trained pilot can do it.

      Right, five pilots can, but they've had training, whereas the simple case of queueing up on the ground can be quickly handled by anyone. That's my point -- we're talking about two different levels of difficulty. The 3D case is more complicated than the 2D one.

    3. Re:Apples and Oranges by SpaceToast · · Score: 1

      It depends on how sophisticated you want their formation flying to be. If the rules are A) Stay together, B) Don't crash into anything, and C) Seek some goal, simple emergent behavior can do remarkablly well. Craig Reynolds' Boids algorithm, developed in 1986, is an amazingly simple way to do it.

      I'm not saying that flocking in the real world, even in "empty" space, isn't a remarkable challenge, but there are sometimes simple ways to create compex coordination. Marco Dorigo's ant colony optimization routines are another example.

      I'm fascinated by this stuff. Jon Klein's open-source Breve simulation environment downloads with some great examples, and it's a great platform for wiring your own.

  10. Im guessing this are for inside use only by technoextreme · · Score: 1

    Ultrasonic sensors tend not to work well in space

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  11. Seaquest by jcdick1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Reminds me less of Star Wars and more of the SeaQuest submarine, since they plan on releasing them outside the station at some point.

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    What?
  12. Waiting for the Redesign by Deinhard · · Score: 1

    I may be the only one, but the in reading the small "mini posting," I thought it said Druids on the ISS.
    Now, I'm not knocking Druids, but I'm certainly not convinced about their effectiveness on the ISS. Sure, certain of their kind can heal and shapeshift but they are hardly useful skills in this situation.

    --
    Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
  13. Boy! by Goo.cc · · Score: 0

    Sounds more like something out of Phantasm to me.

  14. Luke Skywalker? by biglig2 · · Score: 1

    I don't remember Luke building any droid's.

    Annie did, of course. Pity really, if he'd built a PDA instead it would have saved a lot of trouble, as perhaps then he'd have remembered when he got to Corsucant to politely ask one of his friends - the one who rules a planet would be a good place to start - to go back to Tatooine and buy his frickin' mother.

    Funny chap, Annie.

    "Ah, hello Mr Vader. Welcome to Jedi Heaven. Oh, wait a minute, there's a note on your file here - killed women and children, embraced Dark Side, killed your wife, hunted down and destroyed the Jedi order, killed billions of people with a Death Star, tortured your daughter, killed your master, cut your son's hand off, devised a workplace incentive scheme that involved you killing anyone who failed, or even stood next to someone who failed. Hmm, not sure if we can let you in. Unless, of course, there's something you'd like to say in your favour?"

    "Er... well, there was this one time where I decided that I wasn't going to let someone kill my son."

    "Oh, that's all right then! Come on in! Consider the whole thing forgotten about!"

    --
    ~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
    1. Re:Luke Skywalker? by SpaceAdmiral · · Score: 1

      Dude. . . it's refering to that floating orb, light-saber training droid dealie. You know, the one Luke trained with.

    2. Re:Luke Skywalker? by biglig2 · · Score: 1

      I see your point, it's not a very good use of "inspired" though is it - bit like being inspired to be an architect because you saw Cary Grant go into a nice building in a film once.

      --
      ~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
  15. Thats all cool and all by falcon5768 · · Score: 1
    but does it call you Amuro every two minutes?

    THEN it would be bitch'n

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  16. What happens when it runs out of CO2? by ap0 · · Score: 1

    Maybe I didn't RTFA very well, but what happens when it runs out of CO2? Is it disposable in that sense, too? Or does it have an air compressor or something?

    1. Re:What happens when it runs out of CO2? by niXcamiC · · Score: 1

      An air compressor...... It's in space......

      (And you don't just compress air to get liquid co2, you need somewhat pure co2 to compress)

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  17. SPHERES by kalirion · · Score: 1

    Synchronized Position Hold Engage Re-orient Experimental Satellite.... What a coincidence that this unwieldy name would turn into such a perfect acronym!

    1. Re:SPHERES by Mishra2002 · · Score: 1

      The original student research project which was developed in to SPHERES was given the acronym MILLER TIME by the students. I wish I still had what that actually stood for.

  18. Is CO2 the best choice for closed-environment? by Myself · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it just me, or is releasing even more CO2 into the station atmosphere not very helpful? They should use plain compressed air, so as not to alter the gas balance when they're active.

    I understand CO2 is more compressible, but refining it from plain air in order to recharge the little suckers is just extra work. Give 'em big batteries and onboard compressors, and the problem goes away.

    1. Re:Is CO2 the best choice for closed-environment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      as I understand, there should be about 8 ultra silent ultra efficient air circulation engines inside, and run them on batteries. Not CO2 thrusters.. I don't think you can operate thrusters with high precision as such sattelites need to have.

  19. Robin Williams misplaced his by Stanistani · · Score: 1

    This is just Weebo from the remake of 'Flubber'.
    Except the one in the movie wouldn't have worked (weightlessness* helps).

    *Yeah, microgravity, I know. Bite me.

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  20. maneuvered by compressed CO2 thrusters. by dead.phoenix.616 · · Score: 1

    maneuvered by compressed CO2 thrusters.

    hmm, so thats how they move...
    just fart their way around.
    I could probably do that at zero g ;p

    OTOH, seriously speaking, wont the co2 add
    up to the ISS environment hazard?

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