23 June: NASA’s Robonaut 2 becomes the first humanoid robot inside the International Space Station, ISS. It is equipped with capacity to help astronauts during spacewalks.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration recently got a remarkable achievement by keeping a humanoid robot inside the ISS. Named as Robonaut 2, it is the first robot human have ever sent to ISS which can work with astronauts. Apart from this, it is equipped with technology which can help astronauts during the spacewalks.
Charlie Bolden, NASA Administrator along with NASA Invention and Contributions Board and the NASA General Counsel choose this robot as the “NASA Invention of the Year” in 2014. This was developed jointly by U.S. space agency and General Motors. One of the most excited features here is, it is capable of taking selfies; well that’s cool.
Ron Diftler, Robonaut project manager from NASA said in one of his interviews that, “I am proud of the entire Robonaut team that made this achievement possible and look forward to future robotic firsts that I have no doubt they will accomplish.”
One of the most important advantages of this robot is, its humanoid design can conduct both simple as well as dangerous tasks inside ISS. Commenting on this NASA said, “Our challenge is to build machines that can help humans work and explore in space.”
The program was initiated in the year 1997 to send a robot in space. Later in 2011 Robonaut 2 was invented and finally sends to ISS. The idea behind this is simple, if the robot can manage to do certain things which are bit time taking, astronauts can free themselves for research and other important works.