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A year ago this week, the third to last Space Shuttle mission, STS-133 finally launched… 1

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged generalmotors gm Google+ iss nasa r2 robonaut2 on by (updated 4627 days ago)

A year ago this week, the third to last Space Shuttle mission, STS-133 finally launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a delay of almost 4 months to address technical issues.

On board the shuttle was a crate containing a Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot co-developed by +NASA and engineers from +General Motors. What makes R2 different from other robots like Honda's Asimo is that it was designed to do actual work alongside humans both on the International Space Station and eventually in factories here on earth.

That means it is a lot stronger than Asimo which can do some fancy dance moves, but can't lift much weight.

In October 2010 when I was working on product and technology communications for GM, I went down to Florida to support some media events in conjunction with the original planned launch date. The second R2 prototype was being used to demonstrate the robot's capabilities. You can see most of the demo in this video with NASA engineer Nicholas Radford.

A few days ago, the crew on board the ISS finally powered up R2 and began the testing of its control systems in micro-gravity. http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/16/2802290/nasa-robonaut-human-robot-handshake-iss

#robonaut2 #r2 #iss #nasa #generalmotors #gm

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President Obama and ISS crew talk about R2

This entry was posted in technology and tagged discovery international space station iss obama r2 robonaut 2 on by (updated 4994 days ago)

Robonaut 2, better known as R2 finally arrived at the International Space Station last weekend after sitting packed aboard the space shuttle Discovery for more than four months. R2 is the first humanoid robot to make it into space and at this point he is still very much experimental.

The astronauts have moved the crate holding R2 into the station, but the robot hasn’t been unpacked and set up yet. That will be happening sometime in the next few weeks at which point the crew will start testing R2’s performance in micro-gravity and the engineers from the Johnson Space Center and General Motors will tweak the control systems. For now, the engineers on the ground have sent up a set of task boards that will be used for testing, but eventually R2 is expected to handle some of the more mundane tasks around the station like keeping the air filters and hand rails clean.

The other day, president Obama called the ISS to talk to the combined crews of the station and the shuttle and halfway through the discussion turned to R2. Check out the video above.  BTW, R2 has no legs at this time, just an upper body that is mounted on a pedestal.