NASA's First Robotic Crew Member To Tweet From Space Station, Available For Interviews
HOUSTON -- NASA's Robonaut 2 has no voice but is ready to tell you its
story -- in 140 characters or less. The prototype robot will travel
to space this fall to give NASA a deeper understanding of
human-robotic interaction.
Called R2, the robot has started sending updates about its upcoming
mission from its new Twitter account, @AstroRobonaut. With the help
of its supporting team, R2 will document its preparations for launch
and, eventually, its work aboard the International Space Station.
"Hello World! My name is Robonaut 2 -- R2 for short," R2 and the team
tweeted this week. "Follow my adventures here as I prepare for space!"
Follow R2's updates on Twitter at:
http://www.twitter.com/
Reporters are invited to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston at 1
p.m. CDT on Aug. 4 to see demonstrations of R2 in action. They can
speak with members of the STS-133 space shuttle crew, who will
deliver the robot to the station, and engineers who created R2.
Interested news media representatives should e-mail Brandi Dean at
brandi.k.dean@nasa.gov by noon on Aug. 3.
The public will get the first chance to interview the robot when R2
and its team answer questions submitted via Twitter at 10 a.m. on
Aug. 4. Twitter followers can submit their questions to R2 in real
time by including the hashtag #4R2 in their questions tweeted to
@AstroRobonaut.
R2 will be shipped next month from Johnson, where it was created, to
NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final testing and packing.
It will launch aboard space shuttle Discovery as part of the STS-133
mission, targeted to lift off in November.
Robonaut 2 was created through a joint project between NASA and
General Motors that began in 2007. R2 originally was intended to be
an Earth-bound prototype, but engineers wanted to see how it fared in
microgravity so the robot is being sent to space in Discovery's cargo bay.
R2 is already the most advanced dexterous humanoid robot in existence.
Once in space, it will become the first humanoid robot to reach orbit
and the first American-built robot at the space station. Over time,
as its creators learn more about operating R2 in space, upgrades and
modifications could be made that would allow the robot to assist
astronauts inside and outside of the station with routine tasks or
those too dangerous for humans.
For more information about Robonaut 2, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/robonaut
For more information about the STS-133 mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_
For more information about the space station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
Robonaut is just one of many NASA missions using Twitter and other
social media sites. Find them all at:
http://www.nasa.gov/connect
Source: NASA
