NASA's First Robo-Astronaut Unveiled At Space Station

*Scroll down for photo.*

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The first humanoid robot ever launched into space is finally free.

Astronauts at the International Space Station unpacked Robonaut on Tuesday, 2 1/2 weeks after its arrival via shuttle Discovery. NASA broadcast the humorous unveiling ceremony Wednesday.

American Catherine Coleman and Italian Paolo Nespoli pried off the lid of the robot's packing box, as though they were opening a coffin. TV cameras showed lots of foam inside, but no robot.

"It's like unearthing a mummy," radioed a payload controller at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

"Well, at least the mummy would be here," Coleman replied. "We just have an empty box where Robonaut is supposed to be."

Robonaut – also known as R2 – was spotted a minute later in front of a work station.

"I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our crew," Coleman said. "We're going to see what Robonaut can do."

The payload controller asked if R2 was related to HAL, the sinister computer with artificial intelligence from the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey."

"Since we found him already controlling the space station, we're sure that he is related to HAL. But we'll see," Coleman said.

In a Twitter update, R2 announced: "Check me out. I'm in space!" A NASA employee on the ground posted the tweet.

Nespoli attached NASA's waist-high R2 to a fixed pedestal, where it will remain with its fists clenched and its arms folded against its chest until testing begins in May. The robotic team at Johnson Space Center in Houston wants to see how R2 performs in weightlessness. The robot is intended as an astronaut helper, inside the space station, in the decade ahead.

Legs should arrive next year.

R2's earthbound twin spent Wednesday at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, performing demonstrations for children.

View a photo of R2 in-orbit, unboxed and waiting for testing (below).

LOOK: [via @AstroRobonaut[

Comments

[lhanderson86]

02:59 PM on 03/21/2011

NASA's Rockem Sockem Robo-Astronaut!

[Mister Grumpy]

02:19 AM on 03/21/2011

All will be fine........ until the robot wises up and asks to join a union for better working conditions and shorter hours............ then the robot will be replaced by an illegal immigrant.............

[KevinFletcherTweedy]

12:54 AM on 03/21/2011

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."

[DonMadrid1500]

02:40 AM on 03/18/2011

I don't get it. They send up a life sized Power Ranger toy. What will it do?

[jsarets]

03:57 AM on 03/18/2011

The whole point of this program is to figure out what a humanoid robot can do to facilitation human operations in space. 

The low-hanging fruit would be housekeeping tasks like vacuuming and wiping down surfaces, cleaning out air filters, and other mundane maintenance procedures that take on greater importance in zero gravity operations. The ultimate goal would be to have it work on the outside of the station performing maintenance tasks that would otherwise require human spacewalks. 

The Robonaut program will evaluate various different control modes from semi-autonomous operations to master-slave telerobotics. In the latter mode, astronauts would use virtual reality gear to control the robot as if they were doing it themselves. The astronauts already use this type of equipment to train for spacewalks on the ground, and with the addition of Robonaut, they could perform spacewalk tasks from inside the space station in relative safety and comfort.

This kind of operational paradigm has important implications for future exploration of Mars. We'd like to be able to send humans outside to walk the surface and apply their real-time adaptive decision-making skills to the exploration of an alien world, but the radiation environment poses some formidable challenges for space suit engineers. Earth-based telerobotics on Mars is severely limited by the 20-minute communications lag in each direction. But if humans can control robots in real-time from a shielded, pressurized outpost on the Martian surface, then we can exploit the best characteristics of man and machine to accomplish a lot more exploration while reducing risk.

[DonMadrid1500]

07:23 AM on 03/18/2011

Wow! What a clear and concise response.

[L-Hand]

02:47 PM on 03/18/2011

They ultimately hope it will reduce the need for human spacewalks, which are inherently risky for obvious reasons - humans don't fare well in the vaccum of space, radiation, etc.

Use of a humanoid -type robot, especially one with "hands" is particularly desirable because all of the space "stuff" (tools, handles, bolts, etc.) were made with the idea that a human hand would be doing the work.

[WhereBeTheOilBeezys]

05:33 PM on 03/17/2011

The head looks like the helmet from The Rocketeer.

[HuffGeist]

08:27 AM on 03/19/2011

From the looks of it, I was more worried that it would go into autonomous Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot mode and punch the helmet off of an astronaut! An interesting development though and if it removes some of the inherent drudgery and risk of space flight and operations as stated, I hope it is a worthwhile venture.

[BMetcalf]

04:33 PM on 03/17/2011

Skynet is coming! LOL

[Max Shaw]

03:18 PM on 03/17/2011

Damn! Cobra Commander's been working out!

[Carbon Forteetoo]

03:14 PM on 03/17/2011

And now all he has to do is wait. Wait until the puny human astronauts are busy with something else. That's when he'll take the Station...for it is now the time of robots! : : : end of line/

[crayola 08b]

02:59 PM on 03/17/2011

wow it's getting legs too? this i can't wait to see.

[Peatbog]

01:23 PM on 03/17/2011

Robonaut should be called Rzero.