A robot the size of a Pokéball embarked in the International Space Station.

The International Space Station (ISS) has a new inhabitant since the beginning of June 2017! It is a spherical robot of the Japanese Space Agency, in charge of assisting astronauts in the capture of images on a daily basis.

• ROBOT : What is cute and floating in weightlessness in the International Space Station (ISS)? But no, it is not the Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, returned to Earth on June 2, 2017 after a space stay of 6 months, but of the Int-Ball, a drone-camera of 15 cm3 per 1 kg Barely bigger than a Pokéball) developed by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA). It was delivered in space on June 3, 2017 during a refueling carried out by rocket "recycled" by SpaceX. The astronauts had to carry out tests of the small robot ... which seem to be proceeding perfectly, according to the first videos published by the JAXA in mid-July 2017.

• 12 fans to move in weightlessness :
  The role of this funny little sphere? Move in weightlessness to follow the astronauts to the trail, and take charge of their work of photography / video recording of scientific experiments or technical acts performed on board. As the ISS members spend up to 10% of their time with a camera in hand, the Japanese Space Agency advances. Int-Ball could in this respect save them precious time. The aircraft is controlled remotely from the Tsukuba space center on Earth. Its parts (except electronics) were manufactured by 3D printing.

• TECHNOLOGY : To be able to move fluidly in weightlessness and in 3 dimensions, the small robot was equipped with 12 fans. But its performance is also due to the small size of the on-board electronics, including sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope ...), which fit in the pocket handkerchief of 10 cm3 (see diagram below). A technology that the space agencies plan to improve, so as to be able to join the astronauts with drones of assistance, which could one day become, why not, autonomous. Who would have predicted that such droids, long predicted by sagas like Star Wars, could one day become reality in space?

Descriptive diagram of the miniaturized control block integrated in Int-Ball / Credits: JAXA