Benefits of using robots in space

Discuss about the Future Autonomous Space Exploration Robots.

For exploring the difficult environment of space, robots have played an important role. Other than the earth, the moon is the only celestial body that has been explored by human beings. Advancement and rapid research in robotics is allowing scientists to explore the effects of robots in space to gather more information. Robots in space can provide a lot of benefits that human s cannot such as robots do not get tired, bored or get distracted. They can operate in airless environments and their data is quite accurate if the equipment is working properly. In many ways, robots are quite dominant in space than humans. Their sizes can vary in shape as well as size. The sensors are used to collect information they all have similar components such as radio communication unit, sensors, actuators, controllers and power supplies. The sensors are used to collect information for the environment, the information s processed by the controller and command signals are transmitted to the actuators. The information is executed by converting the signal from the actuators. The following research paper discusses about robots in space and evaluates some of its examples.

In the years from 1966 to 1968, a number of spacecrafts was sent to the moon due to the space age between America and Russia.  The surveyor spacecrafts were controlled from the Mission control with the help of remote control signals and the images were received by the earth sensors to analyze. Sometimes, solid Samples were brought back using an external claw that was attached to the robots. The Apollo missions were planned accordingly by the US in response to this mission (Kostavelis et al. 2014)

The first robot in space was the Lunokhod 1 rover which has sent by the Soviet Union to investigate the existence of extra-terrestrial life. In 1970, the space lunar rover landed on the moon and was manually controlled by Soviet Technologists (Rus and Tolley 2015). One of the crucial function of the robot was if it detected an anomaly, it will automatically turn around and wait until further instructions are provided.

The machines which automate and perform our job is called as robots. The study of robots is known as Robotics. In the last decade, the robots have been used by several space organizations such as NASA and SpaceX.  Large objects can be moved around through spacecraft with the help of Space Robotic Arms.  The Robotic spacecraft are used to venture into unknown regions of space in the name of science management.

History of robots in space

NASA uses the robotic arm called Canadarm arm to move objects in the space shuttle. The bigger part of the arm known as Canadarm Arm 2 is used in the International space station. The Robotic arm is used for several purposes in space. It has the capability to recover and release satellites. The Hubble Telescope was gathered by this robotic arms during its reconstruction medium (when the lens of the telescope went slightly out of orientation during the early launch). The robotic arms of the space station was used collectively with the shuttle to build the space station. The robots have been used several times to add new parts to the space station and used for spacewalks to allow the customers to move around (Chen and Tomizuka 2014). The robots can move around the spaceship just like a space worm by inching towards its pint of operation. Another robotic arm called Dextre is used for smaller purpose operations. Although the arms can control some functions autonomously, it still needs to be controlled by the Mission Control. A Joystick or controller is used to control the robots just like computer games.

Robot have been used to conduct those activities that astronauts cannot do perform on their own. Every spacecraft that has been to Moon, Mars, Venus has been a robot. These robots include rovers, landers and orbiters. The robots that has been to Mars have been christened as opportunity and Spirit. Space crafts have been used to fly by other planets too to take pictures. Recently, the original pictures of Pluto was invisible to the naked eye. The only picture that was available for Pluto was just a white blob. With the help of robotic spacecraft, recently a spacecraft was sling slotted towards Pluto with the help of the gravity form Jupiter towards it for clicking spectacular pictures. Another example is Cassini robo craft. For years the composition of the rings of Saturn was a mystery to modern scientists. The Cassini spacecraft was designed to study about the structure of Saturn’s rings and its moons as well.  The Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft are still travelling beyond the solar system. Computers are used to send and receive information from the spacecraft. The robots can pick up the signals from the antennas that are attacked to the spacecraft.

Robotic airplanes are used by NASA to operate several airplanes that are not manned by humans. Remote controls are used to operate these robotic airplanes. Most of these airplanes are not commercial and are just concept for travelling into interstellar space. Research shows that the interspace travel will boom in the early 2050s (Santiago, Walker and Godage 2015). The space business is still untapped with SpaceX already making advancements in these fields.           SpaceX has already developed robotic spacecraft that can carry at least 5 passengers to the space and back and has the aim of commercializing the space flight. These space travelling robotic aircrafts can be used to assess dangerous places and situations that has not been explored before. The planes are smaller in size and can operate for a long time.

Types of robots used in space

Space research organizations such as NASA is working on developing a robot that is called as Robonaut that is deigned just like a humanoid. The upper part of the robot looks like the upper half of a human astronaut. The arms, chest and hands of the robots are present in the Robonaut. The Robonaut is capable of working in interstellar space and outside the spacecraft. It can also help astronauts to function properly during a moon or Mars landing (Jentsch 2016).

SPEHERES is another idea that is developed for utilizing robots in space. These robots are shaped like a soccer ball.  These SPHERES are designed to move effortlessly in the international space station as well as other spacecraft. In the future, some robots will be able to fly outside the space station into outer space to help astronauts. The robotic arms that are developed can be used to perform surgeries in space where carrying special medical experience is rare.  The robots can be used to scout the terrain and take photographs (Del Prete et al. 2015). These robots are called as Scout robots and are used to carry and transport astronauts safely. Moreover, they are have the capability to stop, drive and walk. Voyager 2 was designed to automatically change its operations if human interaction was not found. In 1977, the Voyager 2 was launched to take information about several planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

BRUIE or Buoyant Rover is developed by NASA for exploring oceans that are preset under ice. The Main objective is to explore the oceans of other celestial bodies. The robot has the capability to roll through the icy surface and float in the water. It can maneuver perfectly through the water while collecting information and taking pictures. These robots can be utilized to discover what lies underneath Europa, one of Jupiter’s moon and Enceleadus, one of the moon of Saturn. It will be used to traverse oceans of celestial bodies and can even explore extraterrestrial life which are marine in origin. Europa is a good candidate for this exploration as it has a huge water body just like Earth and can possibly foster life. The robot is designed to be deployed from a satellite and cling to the ice level underneath with the help of cables that has large teeth and metal tires. Current testing has been conducted in the Alaskan Rivers which is almost like Europa where the rover faced the challenge to penetrate a foot of ice to reach the liquid water below (Li and Ge 2014). Although the ice sheets of the earth was not a hurdle for Europa, the ice sheets of Eurpopa can be challenging as the ice sheets are  normally from a few to 50 kilometers long.

Functions of robots in space

Unlike an unmanned spacecraft, a manned spacecraft consists of a life support system and crew compartment. It can be reused in Soyuz and Space shuttle as well. A reentry model is used for the crew to accommodate and a service model is placed that includes the propulsion system, power supply and life support systems. As a part of the Vostok program, the first manned spaceflight was initiated in 1961 by the Soviet Union.  A space flight has been designed by NASA for Commercial crew as well as for transportation services.

Conclusion

To conclude the report, it can be stated that for space exploration, space robots are the most effective tools that are presently available. The best way of collection of information and usage of tools are used by Rovers. In the future, where the transit time of deep space exploration will increase, robots will be used more extensively in space than previously imagined. Moreover, the robots can be used to explore deep celestial objects which are light years away and are impossible for a human being to explore it in a single lifetime. Several projects are still underlying which are still in their concept stage such as Submarine exploration In Europa and crawling landers on the moon. Human beings have even attempted to put a robot on a orbiting comet to study its competition. Thus, robots have played an integral role in technology development as is opening new boundaries for deep space exploration.

References

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Rus, D. and Tolley, M.T., 2015. Design, fabrication and control of soft robots. Nature, 521(7553), p.467.

Jentsch, F., 2016. Human-robot interactions in future military operations. CRC Press.

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Jentsch, F., 2016. Robots in space and time: The role of object, motion and spatial perception in the control and monitoring of uninhabited ground vehicles. In Human-robot interactions in future military operations (pp. 103-122). CRC Press.

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Chen, W. and Tomizuka, M., 2014. Direct joint space state estimation in robots with multiple elastic joints. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 19(2), pp.697-706.

Li, Y. and Ge, S.S., 2014. Impedance learning for robots interacting with unknown environments. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 22(4), pp.1422-1432.

Santiago, J.L.C., Walker, I.D. and Godage, I.S., 2015, March. Continuum robots for space applications based on layer-jamming scales with stiffening capability. In Aerospace Conference, 2015 IEEE (pp. 1-13). IEEE.