space robot

Yesterday afternoon at 4:53 pm EST space shuttle Discovery blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Safely packed in the cargo bay aboard mission STS-133 was a new kind of a crew member – the Robonaut 2. The Robonaut 2 is the second generation of a humanoid robot developed by NASA, GM and DARPA for space exploration. It is modular in nature, which allows for new parts and upgrades to be shipped and attached at a later point, and is intended to participate and assist in both manned and unmanned space missions, via telepresence and various levels of robotic autonomy for control. The robot is very dexterous and, while not all human range of motion and sensitivity has been duplicated, its hand has impressive 12 degrees of freedom of movement as well as 2 degrees of [...]