Nasa’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) has partnered with global freelancing and crowdsourcing platform, Freelancer.com, to design a robotic arm for the Astrobee freeflying robot.
The space agency started the initiative through the Nasa Tournament Lab (NTL). Once completed, the Astrobee freeflying robot will replace the SPHERES autonomous free-flying robot on the International Space Station (ISS).
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Under the initiative, Nasa is crowdsourcing parts from more than 17 million freelancers worldwide for Astrobee.
Nasa is planning to incorporate various new abilities in Astrobee that will be able to roam inside the space station on its own without disturbing or interfacing the activities of ISS.
Among the new capabilities to be included in Astrobee is the addition of a small and lightweight robotic arm that can be used to rest and interact with small objects.
The freeflying robot can be used to conduct several routine, repetitive and simple activities. It can also be used for time-consuming taks, including surveys and inspections, and can be used as a mobile sensor platform or mobile camera to film activities of the ISS.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataNasa is also working on its own Astrobee design and is seeking help from the public in case anyone has an improved concept.
Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie says: "Nasa and Freelancer.com achieved great success with crowdsourcing on Freelancer.com to build CAD models to help train the image recognition system of the Robonaut 2 robotic astronaut.
"We are now excited to be tapping into the collective ability of over 17 million freelancers to design a robotic arm that could possibly be used with the successor to the SPHERES robot on the International Space Station.
"It showcases the phenomenal breadth and depth of talent available worldwide on Freelancer.com."
Over the next few months, the project will be rolled out in three phases. The first phase, which includes a registration process, from which Nasa will select the top thirty freelancers who will be eligible to participate in the first task, started this month.
In the second phase, the selected freelancers will have to decode the system architecture of the robot. In phase three, Nasa will crowdsource detailed designs of the subcomponents, which will be selected in phase two.
