Another day at the office for NASA's robot astronaut

Douglas Heaven, reporter

(Image: NASA)

This fine figure of a robot is Robonaut 2 - or R2, for short - dutifully flicking switches aboard the International Space Station (ISS) last week. R2 travelled to the station in February 2011 on the space shuttle Discovery's final mission and currently works alongside six human colleagues. But while the humans come and go, R2 isn't due any shore leave.

R2 is the product of a 15-year project to design a humanoid robot that can work in space alongside people. Its size, shape and human-like hands - including touch-sensitive fingertips - allow it to use the same tools and controls as its transient colleagues. But with arms that move at under 2 metres per second, R2 is in less of a rush.

The robot can be teleoperated either by humans on the ISS or from the ground. But it can also carry out instructions autonomously - which will be essential if R2's descendants are to operate on Mars or beyond, at distances where communication lag becomes a problem.

As with other members of the ISS team, you can follow Robonaut 2 on Twitter @AstroRobonaut and even catch an occasional cameo on the ISS live stream.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/274f246b/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A130C0A10Canother0Eday0Eat0Ethe0Eoffice0Efor0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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