Sep 8 1999
From The Space Library
NASA announced that scientists at Ames Research Center (ARC), who were developing an autonomous robot called the Personal Satellite Assistant (PSA), had completed a key test of the robot's components. NASA planned to use the robot to support future space missions, equipping it with a variety of sensors to monitor environmental conditions inside a spacecraft, such as the amounts of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other gases in the air; the amount of bacterial growth in the environment; the air temperature; and the air pressure. The development of the PSA was the next phase in developing advanced information technologies, following the success of the Wireless Network Experiment, which NASA's ARC had conducted for the International Space Station (ISS) in 1995. Atlantis astronauts had discovered that wireless computer network systems worked well in a space environment during Mission STS-76, when they tested these networks and found that radio signals from wireless computers did not interfere with the electronic equipment of the Shuttle or of Mir. The experiment's success had prompted the astronauts to recommend using handheld, wireless, portable data assistants to support mission operations on the future ISS. ARC scientists had taken the idea a step further, designing autonomous intelligent robots that would free the astronauts' hands. ARC scientists had also designed the PSA to handle routine "housekeeping chores," such as monitoring inventory and performing environmental sensor-calibration checks, so that astronauts would have more time to focus on research tasks.
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