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The newest ISS 'crew member' will be a flying robot with AI (updated)
A curious robot is heading to the ISS aboard the next SpaceX resupply mission. It's shaped like a ball with a flattened surface where its face is drawn on a screen -- plus, it can speak, respond to spoken commands and fly. The machine called CIMON, which is short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, is pretty much a flying IBM-developed brain with a body and flight mechanism created by Airbus. It's the companies' joint project with the German Aerospace Center and was created to be a hands-free assistant that can make astronauts' tasks easier.
NASA and Germany extend the life of their flying observatory
SOFIA, the airborne telescope that backed up New Horizons in studying Pluto, will go on flights to observe our universe until the end of 2020. NASA and the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt or DLR) have extended their joint project for four more years. SOFIA is a 17-ton infrared telescope with an 8.9-foot-diameter primary mirror fitted into a Boeing 747SP wide-body plane. A hatch on the aircraft slides open so the telescope can get a view of the sky. And since it operates at altitudes of about 41,000 feet, it can make its observations above most of the water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere, which blocks some infrared waves.
ICYMI: The death-proof car, rat gambling addiction and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-359509{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-359509, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-359509{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-359509").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Volvo just pledged to build a 'deathproof' automobile by 2020 that will include adaptive cruise control and pedestrian detection. By 'deathproof,' it means unless you are crazy stupid (ie: Go flying off the Golden Gate Bridge in it), you won't be able to die in one of the company's cars.
Philae comet lander may wake up as early as this week
After a few months of slumber due to a lack of sunlight, the Philae comet lander might be close to waking up. It's receiving enough sun now that the Rosetta probe will attempt to resume contact between March 12th and 20th. If communication is successful, the next step will be to decide what research Philae can handle -- it'll conduct long-term studies if it has enough power to run during the comet's night cycle, but it might be limited to a handful of tests if it can only stay active in the daytime. There's no guarantee that the lander will answer (it's only in sunlight for an estimated 1.3 hours every comet day), but scientists vow to give it another try if they only get silence.
LIDAR system uses lasers to detect clear air turbulence before it hits
Fact: turbulence is no fun at all. Aside from the brief moments of bone-deep terror it can cause passengers, clear air turbulence (CAT) can also prove costly for airlines in terms of damages. To help pilots deal with difficult-to-spot areas where CAT is likely to occur, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is spearheading a new joint European project known as DELICAT. Essentially, the DELICAT program calls for planes to be equipped with a light detection and ranging instrument (LIDAR) that emits short-wave ultraviolet lasers. Radiation then bounces off oxygen and nitrogen particles in the air, indicating fluctuations in air density that signal the presence of CAT pockets. Until the end of August, the DLR will run test flights in a specially modified Cessna Citation plane to both show off LIDAR's capabilities and to give researchers invaluable data on CAT patterns. Though the system is still in its infancy, the folks at the DLR hope that the technology will one day become a standard part of commercial air travel.
Achtung: German satellite to crash down tonight, won't land in Germany
As if it weren't hard enough keeping your house safe from debt collectors these days, now you have something else to worry about: a falling German satellite called ROSAT. The German Aerospace Center has estimated that the hunk of decommissioned, extra-orbital metal will enter the atmosphere sometime between 7:30pm ET tonight and 1:30am ET tomorrow. It's unknown whether any of the thing will survive re-entry, but the 1.7 ton telescope mirror onboard very well may, striking the surface at a hasty 17,398MPH. The agency doesn't know where it will fall, but did reassuringly say that it won't hit Europe -- German scientists basically telling the rest of the world to spend all night worrying while they doze away, peacefully. At least it won't be taking any of its orbital brethren with it... Update: Looks like it landed in the Indian Ocean on Saturday night.
Robot arm learns to use hammer, mocks pathetic human's attempt to fight back (video)
This guy had a pretty natural reaction upon discovering that the DLR Hand Arm System has learned to use a hammer: he took a bat to the thing. Rather than curbing the inevitable robotic uprising, however, the whole thing just demonstrates exactly how durable the mechanical appendage is, as it resumes normal functionality after the swift blow. The arm contains 52 motors and super strong synthetic tendons, and is the work of the German Aerospace Center, the electronic sadists who also recently took a hammer to one of their robot hands. Videos of the mayhem after the jump -- we're sure they'll be Skynet's Exhibit A. [Thanks, Joseph]
German robot hand takes a licking, apparently keeps on ticking (video)
Sadists at the German Aerospace Center's (DLR) Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics are showing off their latest development in anthropomorphic appendages: a robotic hand that can take a beating from a baseball bat and still give you the middle finger (or a thumbs-up, we suppose). Researchers apparently designed the limb to function like only a human hand can, and it seems they've done a decent job: it's got five independently functioning fingers, sports 19 degrees of freedom (one less than the real deal), and can even snap them phalanges -- oh no they didn't! It's also got the ability to exert a force of 30 newtons from its fingertips. So what makes it so resilient? The robo-hand has a built-in web of 38 tendons, which allow it to adapt its stiffness under different circumstances: a step away, its creators say, from rigid appendages of the past. There's a video of the hand taking a beating after the jump, but honestly, we'd prefer to see what happens when the hand fights back.
