SPACE: WHERE ARE WE GOING? : ROBOTS

Thursday, April 5, 2012

NASA ROBOTS SHOWCASED AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY'S 'ROBOT BLOCK PARTY'

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. – Two cutting-edge NASA prototype robots will be
featured during a "Robot Block Party" at Stanford University,
Stanford, Calif. from 1 – 6 p.m. PDT, Wednesday, April 11, 2012. The
Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is hosting the
free public event as part of the third annual National Robotics Week.

Robotic technology from the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) at NASA's
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., will be on display,
including a volleyball-sized free-flying satellite, known as "Smart
SPHERES." Also featured will be a prototype robot based on a
dynamically-controlled "tensegrity structure" – a collection of rods
connected and suspended by tensioned cables – called "TenseBot."

The International Space Station currently houses three Synchronized
Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES)
equipped with a Nexus™ S Smartphone made by Samsung Electronics and
using Google’s Android™ platform. Later this year, the IRG will
remotely control the Smart SPHERES from the Mission Control Center at
NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. The test will simulate a mobile
inspection of the space station to see how well the free-flying
robots can collect data using the smartphone's camera and sensors.

The TenseBot will be used to explore how tensegrity structures, which
are typically built as architectural art exhibits, can be controlled
by computers. Researchers in the IRG are interested in tension-based
structures because they have great potential to save space, weight
and energy and can be used for a variety of tasks on NASA's future
space missions, including deploying antennas, aligning large payloads
and pointing solar arrays.

Other robotic technology on display at the Robot Block Party includes
robots that drive cars, climb walls, assemble delicate parts, and
help perform medical procedures.

The Robot Block Party will be held in the Volkswagen Automotive
Innovation Lab at 473 Oak Rd, off Stock Farm Rd, Stanford. Park in
Parking Structure 5, or adjacent lots.

National Robotics Week is organized by the Robotics Caucus of the U.S.
Congress and leading robotics companies, schools, and organizations.

STAR FLASH

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon's outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this had never been seen before -- supernovas and novas expel matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash appears to expel material into space, what is seen in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash. In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the complex array of ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star. V838 Mon lies about 20,000 light years away toward the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros), while the light echo above spans about six light years in diameter. Image Credit: NASA, ESA

THE SPIDERWEB GALAXY

Looking like a spider's web swirled into a spiral, Galaxy IC 342 presents its delicate pattern of dust in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Seen in infrared light, faint starlight gives way to the glowing bright patterns of dust found throughout the galaxy's disk. At a distance of about 10 million light-years, IC 342 is relatively close by galactic standards, however our vantage point places it directly behind the disk of our own Milky Way. The intervening dust makes it difficult to see in visible light, but infrared light penetrates this veil easily. IC 342 belongs to the same group as its even more obscured galactic neighbor, Maffei 2. IC 342 is nearly face-on to our view, giving a clear, top-down view of the structure of its disk. It has a low surface brightness compared to other spirals, indicating a lower density of stars (seen here as a blue haze). Its dust structures show up much more vividly (red). Blue dots are stars closer to us, in our own Milky Way. New stars are forming in the disk at a healthy rate. The very center glows especially brightly in the infrared, highlighting an enormous burst of star formation occurring in this tiny region. To either side of the center, a small bar of dust and gas is helping to fuel this central star formation. Data from Spitzer's infrared array camera are shown in blue (3.6 microns), green (4.5 microns) and red (5.8 and 8.0 microns). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

JUMPING TO WARP SPEED

This cockpit view of a hypothetical spacecraft traveling at eight-tenths the speed of light shows the visual distortions that would be experienced at such high speeds. The star field is actually being wrapped toward the front of the craft in addition to being significantly blue-shifted. NASA Glenn leads the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, NASA's primary effort to produce near-term, credible, and measurable progress toward the technology breakthroughs needed to revolutionize space travel and enable interstellar voyages. NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio.

OBSERVATION FROM THE SPACE STATION