Meet the adorable robot camera Japan’s space agency sent to the ISS.

Science can be cute as hell when it wants to be – take the JEM Internal Ball Camera (“Int-Ball” for short). The device, created by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was delivered to the International Space Station on June 4, 2017, and now JAXA is releasing its first video and images.

The purpose of Int-Ball is to give scientists on the ground the ability to remotely capture images and video, via a robot that can move autonomously around in space and capture both moving and still imagery. The 3D-printed drone offer real-time monitoring for “flight controllers and researchers on the ground,” according to JAXA, and the media it gathers can also be fed back to ISS crew.

Int-Ball’s unique design is obviously made possible by the zero-G environment in which it operates. It’s aiming to be able to move around “anywhere at any time via autonomous flight and record images from any angle,” says Japan’s space agency, and will hope to help onboard ISS crew by reducing the time they spend taking photography and capturing video themselves to zero. That currently accounts for around 10 percent of ISS crew time, JAXA says.

Int-Ball contains actuators, rotational and acceleration sensors and electromagnetic brakes to help it orient in space, and JAXA is exploring the tech for other applications including satellites. The mission on the ISS, following its initial verification, which is underway now, includes improving its performance and seeking ways to help it better operate – with experiments both inside and outside space-borne vehicles.

No word on its friendship capabilities but I have to imagine they’re very high.

More@ https://www.technapping.com

Source: Techcrunch.com

Comments

Walmart expands its grocery delivery business, powered by Uber

Walmart is expanding a test of its grocery delivery service, powered by Uber, the company announced this week. The retailer is now offering grocery delivery in two new markets — Dallas and Orlando — which join Tampa and Phoenix as locations where consumers can shop online for grocery items, then opt to have them come to their home for an additional $9.95 fee. Grocery delivery has been something Walmart has experimented with for years, starting with tests in Denver and San Jose of grocery delivery using its own service and trucks. The tests involving Uber are newer, however. In June, 2016, Walmart began a trial in Phoenix, which expanded to Tampa this March. In those locations, Walmart offers grocery delivery at five local stores per market. This week’s Dallas test is larger, with 8 stores participating. In Orlando, there are four stores involved. The grocery delivery service is available via the same online grocery shopping website where customers can place their pick-up orders — a s...

This 23-year-old just closed her second fund — which is focused on aging — with $22 million

Laura Deming is not your typical venture capitalist. Then again, she isn’t typical in many ways. For starters, the 23-year-old, New Zealand native was home schooled, developing along the way a love of math and physics and, perhaps most interestingly, the biology of aging. In fact, she became so preoccupied with the latter that at age 11, Deming wrote to Cynthia Kenyon , a renowned molecular biologist who specializes in the genetics of aging, asking if she could visit Kenyon’s San Francisco lab during a family trip to the Bay Area. Kenyon said yes. When, soon after the visit, Deming asked if she could work in the lab, Kenyon said yes again. Deming’s family moved to the U.S. to make it possible, and it’s highly doubtful they regret the decision. Indeed, by age 14, Deming was a student at MIT, and two years after that — at the tender age of 16 — she was a college drop-out, having been accepted into Peter Thiel’s two-year-old Thiel Fellowship program, which gives $100,000 to young people ...

Lilium, a German company building an electric ‘air taxi,’ makes key hires from Gett, Airbus and Tesla

Left to right: VP of Production Dirk Gebser, Head of Recruitment Meggy Sailer, CCO Dr. Remo Gerber and co-founder CEO Daniel Wiegand Lilium is almost as ambitious as European startups come. The Munich-based company is developing an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet, which it hopes will one day power an on-demand “air taxi” service, arguably making flying cars a reality. And although it’s still early days — the two-seater Lilium Jet prototype only took its first public (and successful) test flight in April — the startup is announcing a number of key hires from notable companies in the transportation space. They are Dr. Remo Gerber, former MD for Western Europe at Gett, who joins Lilium as chief commercial officer; Dirk Gebser, who takes up the position of VP of Production and previously held manufacturing executive roles at Airbus and Rolls Royce; and Meggy Sailer, who joined Lilium as Head of Recruitment in February and was formerly Tesla’s Head of Talent EMEA. (...

Technapping

Search This Blog