Space Notebook: Robonaut 2 gets legs, New Horizons Pluto-bound

Android helper stands 8 feet tall

Before Robonaut 2, the humanoid robot aboard the International Space Station, could take its first steps later this year, it needed legs.

Expedition 40 commander Steve Swanson attached them last week, the latest step in a series of “mobility upgrades.”

Designed by NASA in partnership with General Motors, the “R2” torso arrived at the station in 2011 and has been attached to a pedestal.

The gold-helmeted robot has tested a variety of tasks with its human-like arms and hands, such as moving knobs and switches and handling tools that might give astronauts time to work on more complex problems.

Legs weren’t part of the original design, but NASA eventually hopes to send Robonaut outside the station, where it could potentially perform a job without putting an astronaut in harm’s way on a spacewalk.

With the two gangly legs straight, Robonaut would stand more than eight feet tall. Unlike the torso, the legs do not resemble a person’s appendages.

“In space you don’t use your human legs the way you would use them on the ground, so we didn’t adhere to the human form when it doesn’t make any sense,” Ron Diftler, the Robonaut 2 principal investigator, told NASA TV’s “Space Station Live.”

“In the case of space, you want legs that are going to give you more of a climbing capability than a walking capability,” Diftler said.

R2 could take its first steps inside the outpost in November or December.

Satellites OK, but in wrong orbits

The European Space Agency is scrambling to salvage a pair of navigation satellites delivered to the wrong orbit during an Aug. 22 launch by a Russian Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.

The agency last week said the Galileo 5 and 6 satellites — nicknamed “Doresa” and “Milena” — were safe and under control, though in a lower, elliptical orbit, instead of a higher, circular orbit.

The satellites likely cannot maneuver themselves to the right position. After seeing what they are capable of in their present orbit, ESA would then assess recovery possibilities.

Craft will be first to visit Pluto

More than eight years after launching from Cape Canaveral, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is now less than a year from becoming the first probe to make a close encounter with Pluto.

Last week, the piano-sized spacecraft reached Neptune’s orbit nearly 2.75 billion miles from Earth.

“Exactly 25 years ago at Neptune, Voyager 2 delivered our ‘first’ look at an unexplored planet,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. “Now it will be New Horizons’ turn to reveal the unexplored Pluto and its moons in stunning detail next summer on its way into the vast outer reaches of the solar system.”

Space commander stops in at ULA

The new commander of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center last week visited the Decatur, Ala., rocket factory run by United Launch Alliance, the Air Force’s only certified launcher of national security payloads.

“Through 75 launches, (the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program) has successfully and repeatedly demonstrated a commitment to mission success,” Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves said. “This is a superb record, but we cannot take it for granted.”

Greaves’ visit came a few weeks after he dropped in at SpaceX, which is in the process of earning certification to compete for national security launches.

3rd FIT scientist OK’d for Hubble

The Space Notebook last week reported that Florida Tech’s Eric Perlman and Veronique Petit had won observation time on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

It turns out a third member of the Melbourne university’s Department of Physics and Space Sciences faculty also can claim the honor: Asst. Prof. Darin Ragozzine. He’ll use Hubble to study the dwarf planet Haumea in the outer solar system, to better determine the size and orbits of its two moons.

Contracts set at Cape, KSC

NASA last week extended a contract with Jacobs Technology Inc., Kennedy Space Center’s lead contractor for ground systems, flight hardware processing and launch operations.

Tullahoma, Tenn.-based Jacobs took over that role from United Space Alliance after the shuttle’s retirement.

The two-year extension of the Test and Operations Support Contract ran through Sept. 30, 2016, with a value of $172.8 million.

Jacobs work supports the International Space Station; NASA’s developing human exploration rocket, spacecraft and ground systems; KSC’s Launch Services Program; and commercial customers.

Separately, the Air Force announced contract modifications for two 45th Space Wing contractors. The awards totaled $80.2 million for Computer Sciences Raytheon and $30.7 million for Indyne, Inc.