Meet CIMON, the 1st robot with artificial intelligence to fly in space

A beautiful friendship of Spatial exploration between the human and the machine is just beginning.

Early this morning (June 29), a small robot with artificial intelligence (AI) launched a two-day trip. the International Space Station aboard the Dragon SpaceX cargo capsule. According to the members of the project team, no other machine equipped with AI has ever flown in space.

The mission of the bantam astronaut assistant, known as CIMON, is relatively short and modest. But his off-shore work could help pave the way for some very big things, according to NASA officials. [Real-Life ‘Replicants’: 6 Humanoid Robots Used for Space Exploration]

"Having the IA – having 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 moving away More and more humans on the planet "Kirk Shireman, director of NASA's International Space Station (ISS) program, said at a press conference before the launch of the conference (28 June) [19659005] "We must have autonomy," he added. "We will need tools like this to make species live far from Earth."

A Smart Flying Sphere

CIMON was developed by the European aviation company Airbus on behalf of the German Space Agency. is known by its German acronym, DLR. The AI ​​of the robot is the famous Watson system of IBM

CIMON is roughly spherical and weighs 11 lbs. (5 kilograms). The robot can converse with people, and he knows who he is talking to thanks to facial recognition software. (CIMON has a clean face – a simple cartoon.) The astronaut's assistant is also mobile; Once aboard the ISS, CIMON will be able to fly by sucking air and expelling it through special tubes.

Although CIMON is flexible enough to interact with anyone, it is "adapted" to the astronaut of the European Space Agency Alexander Gerst. arrived at the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft earlier this month. CIMON's mission requires the robot to work with Gerst on three separate investigations.

"They will experiment with the crystals, work together to solve the Rubik's cube and perform a complex medical experiment using CIMON as a "smart" flying camera, wrote the representatives of Airbus in a mission description earlier this year.] CIMON will be a very involved partner in this work, which will take a total of 3 hours.

"Alexander Gerst could say something like: CIMON, could you please help me to perform some experiment? with the procedure? "Said Philipp Schulien, CIMON system engineer at Airbus, at a different press conference yesterday. "And then CIMON will fly to Alexander Gerst, and they'll already start communication."

CIMON will be able to access a lot of relevant information, including photos and videos, on the procedure in question. And the astronaut assistant is smart enough to deal with "issues out of the process" that Gerst might have, adds Schulien.

A step towards the future

The mission of CIMON is a technological demonstration designed to show researchers how humans and machines can interact and collaborate in the space environment. It will still be some time before intelligent robots are ready to do heavy lifting at the last frontier, for example, by helping astronauts repair damaged spaceships or treating limbs. sick crew. But this day probably arrives

"For us, it's a part of the future of manned spaceflight", said Christian Karrasch, CIMON project manager at DLR, yesterday

"Si you go to the moon or to Mars, you can not take all the humanity and the engineers with you, "added Karrasch." So, astronauts, they will be alone, but with artificial intelligence, you have instantly all knowledge of humanity. "

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