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A commercial cargo carrier owned and operated by SpaceX arrived at the International Space Station port on Monday, three days after the launch of Cape Canaveral with NASA's scientific instrument. a robotic arm and an AI help bot for the crew of six people from the research lab.
Completing an air cargo delivery with a laser-guided final approach, the Dragon spacecraft arrived at the space station at 6:54. On Monday, as the robotic arm of the laboratory seized the tanker ship, the link between the International Space Station and the Dragon freighter cargo ship reached 412 kilometers on Quebec City, both speeds of 5 miles (8 km) per second.
"Houston, station, complete capture," radio astronaut Ricky Arnold. "Opt for post-capture reconfiguration, we look forward to exciting weeks as we unload science and start some great experiments."
Ground controllers ordered the robotic arm to move the Dragon capsule to a port. 39 docking on the station's Harmony module, where a series of bolts and 16 closed bolts create a firm connection between the outpost and the visiting tanker about three hours later.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule joins a Northrop Grumman's Cygnus commercial supply ship, another NASA cargo transportation provider.
The cargo freighter Dragon was launched on Friday from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9 rocket. His arrival at the Space Station on Monday marked the second visit of the same capsule to the research complex in orbit, as a result. a cargo delivery mission in July and August 2016.
SpaceX refurbished the pressurized compartment of the spacecraft
SpaceX has a $ 3.04 billion contract with NASA for 20 replenishment missions of the International Space Station. The mission that reached the research laboratory on Monday was the 15th under this contract, including a flight that had a launch accident in June 2015.
NASA awarded SpaceX a follow-up contract for a minimum of six additional replenishment missions starting in 2020 and a $ 2.6 billion contract to complete the development of an upgraded version of the Dragon spacecraft, which could fly its first unmanned demonstration mission to the space station more late this year.
SpaceX says it intends to steal the rest of its freight missions under the first contract, which continues in early 2020, with reused Dragon capsules. After 2020, the company's replenishment flights will fly aboard the same "Dragon 2" vehicle model developed for the astronaut crews, replacing the cockpit seats and controls with cargoes.
Astronauts plan to open the hatches leading to the Dragon spaceship. unpacking the ship's pressurized cabin
The mission delivered 5,946 pounds (2,697 kilograms) of equipment, experiments and supplies to the research laboratory in orbit. About 3,774 pounds (1,712 kilograms) of this count were carried in the Dragon's Inner Cabin, including: [19659014] 2,718 pounds (1,233 kilograms) of scientific investigations
mice to be examined by scientists when returning to Earth. Researchers will study the effects of microgravity on microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract of animals.
There is also an experience aboard the Dragon cargo capsule that will help scientists study the growth of algae in space. Algae could provide basic nutrition and help absorb carbon dioxide in future space missions, and algae oils could reduce the harmful effects of cosmic radiation on humans.
Alexander Gerst, astronaut of the European Space Agency on the space station, also gets a talking assistant activated by artificial intelligence.
Known as CIMON – abbreviation of Crew Interactive Mobile Companion – the robot will help Gerst perform tasks, conduct experiments, repair and improve components inside the space station.
"CIMON a floating artificial intelligence, and when it will be activated, it's a bit of a historic moment," said Christian Karrasch, CIMON Project Manager at DLR, the German Aerospace Center. "We are very pleased that CIMON is the first artificial intelligence in space."
"For us, this is a part of the future of manned spaceflight.If you go to the Moon or Mars, you can not take all humans and engineers with you, but with artificial intelligence, you have, instantly, all the knowledge of humanity, "said Karrasch. partnership between DLR, Airbus Defense and Space, and IBM, CIMON is a spherical device on the size of a medicine ball. According to Airbus, the entire structure of CIMON, mainly metal and plastic, was printed in 3D
. Robots like CIMON could help space crews work more efficiently, improve safety, reduce stress and help the public better understand spaceflight. According to the project leader, CIMON's "neural" AI network and its ability to learn, as well as human characteristics such as face and voice, make it a companion of Gerst and other members of the team.
The AI-enabled assistant was paired with Gerst, an astronaut of German origin, who used voice samples before his flight. This means that CIMON will communicate better with him, but the officials said that anyone could work with the robot.
"If Alexander Gerst has any questions about the experience he is working on, CIMON is fully aware of this experience, within the experience, and he can ask questions that are beyond the procedure, "said Philipp Schulien, an engineer on CIMON of Airbus.
CIMON learns with the help of IBM Watson AI technology
C & # 39; connectivity, all communications back through the cloud, "said Bret Greenstein, global vice president of Watson's offerings and IBM's Internet of Things." All the AI work is being processed on the cloud, the current language, all the training and customization we have done is happening in the cloud, which means we can improve it at any time. Kirk Shireman, NASA's Space Station Program Manager, said that astronaut crews traveling deeper into the solar system will have to be more autonomous because of the communication delays inherent in such trips.
can think of all human knowledge, you might need to access some parts of that, "said Shireman." So, have the AI, and have this knowledge base and the ability to take advantage of it in a way that is useful for the task you are doing, is really critical to have humans growing further and further away from the planet. "
CubeSats has also been transported into the Pressurized Dragon module for deployment outside the Space Station in the coming months Three of the nanosatellites are part of the Biarri program, a partnership between the US, Australian, US, and US defense authorities United Kingdom and Canada.
Three CubeSats developed under the auspices of the Birds Program, led by the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan, were also delivered to the Space Station on Monday for later deployment. CubeSats in the inte were built by students in Bhutan, Malaysia and the Philippines.
In sum, the cargo mission will help enable 27 scientific experiments on the space station, according to David Brady, assistant scientist at the International Space Station program at Johnson Space Center of NASA in Houston.
Crab, lobster and maple smoked salmon, strong coffee bags of Death Wish Coffee, an iPad Air and combination gloves are also among the items stored in the Dragon spaceship [19659003] a Canadian-made locking effector arm for the research laboratory's robotic arm, plus a 1213-pound (550-kilogram) instrument developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to be mounted outside the station's Japanese Kibo lab module to measure the temperature of the plants.
The end-of-emergency effector, or hand, for the robotic arm will be stored outside the space station, ready to replace one of the two ends of the weapon . The astronauts replaced both hands of the robotic arm with a series of exits in space at the end of last year and earlier this year. Both locking effectors showed signs of aging and wear after nearly 17 years on the space station, and replacements left the station without a spare hand for the arm, also known as Canadarm 2.
"said Ken Podwalski, program manager of the space station of the Canadian Space Agency. "We always want to be able to protect for failure."
The robotic arm is vital for the space station to receive cargo shipments from SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, Northrop Grumman's cargo ship Cygnus and Japanese supply ship HTV. It is also used to move astronauts around the space station on spacewalks and to transfer experiments and other equipment around the scientific outpost of nearly one million books [19659003] Canadarm 2 is Canada's main contribution to the space station. It uses locking effectors to deworm between multiple host adapters outside the space station module and on the backbone of the station, and the arm's hands are capable of carrying data, video and video. of electrical energy. We have achieved exceptional performances from our space robotics, just because (we are) 17 years in the game for a system that was designed for a 10-year operational life – and 15 years in orbit – with the very few problems that we have "I had it," said Podwalski
"I think our biggest problems have really focused on cameras.We have changed a number of cameras.We have new cameras in the process of realization, and these are really great because we can change them robotically, "he said." So this is a case where we use our own robots to repair our own robots. This is a bit of the ideal scenario. "
The space thermal space radiometer experiment on the space station ecosystem, or ECOSTRESS, will measure thermal energy from the Earth's surface. The temperature measurements will indicate to scientists the plant health, the amount of water used and the resistance of crops to extreme conditions such as heat waves and droughts.
"When a plant is so stressed that it becomes brown, It is often too late to recover, "said Simon Hook, ECOSTRESS senior researcher at JPL. "But measuring the temperature of the plant allows you to see that a plant is stressed before it reaches that point."
Developed with a cost cap of $ 30 million, the ECOSTRESS instrument is a tool for future missions and will collect data. "ECOSTRESS will allow us to monitor rapid changes in crop stress in the field, thus enabling earlier and more accurate estimates of the impact on yields," said Martha Anderson. , member of the ECOSTRESS Scientific Team at the United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland. Even short-term water stress, if it occurs at a critical stage of crop growth, can have a significant impact on productivity.
The thermal sensitivity of ECOSTRESS will also make it useful for detecting and studying hot spots such as forest fires and volcanoes.
The Dragon spacecraft will leave the space station on August 2 and return to the Pacific Ocean with nearly two tons of equipment, cargo and specimens for research by engineers and scientists at the Pacific Ocean. ground.
The Dragon capsule will return to Earth with one of the former Canadarm 2 locking effectors, which will be inspected and repaired by Canadian engineers for a possible relaunch to the space station
After arrival On Monday the SpaceX Dragon capsule, the space station crew will prepare for the launch and docking of a Russian rally replenishment and a cargo ship cargo ship on July 9. The Progress MS-09 spacecraft is preparing to take off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan stan at 17:51 EDT (2151 GMT) next Monday
The Russian cargo ship will attempt the shortest rendezvous ever at the space station, with a docking scheduled less than four hours later at 20:39. EDT (0039 GMT July 10)
The Cygnus supply ship already at the space station is expected to conduct a brief relaunch of the research laboratory's orbit on July 12, the first time such a maneuver was tempted by a US. commercial cargo vehicle. Three days later, on July 15, the Cygnus spacecraft is expected to leave the space station laden with trash to be eliminated during a destructive comeback over the Pacific Ocean.
But the Northrop Grumman-owned transport vehicles will first climb a higher orbit to release several commercial CubeSats transported in a deployer outside the vehicle
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