<h2>Silver Lining</h2>
When Beresheet, the lunar lander built by the Israel-based company SpaceIL, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/beresheet-lunar-lander-crashed">crashed into the Moon</a>, it was carrying more than the hopes and dreams of the first private company to reach the Moon.
It also happened to be shuttling a small piece of NASA equipment. But the device may have survived the crash, <a href="https://www.space.com/did-nasa-experiment-survive-beresheet-crash.html">according to Space.com</a> — a remarkable testament to the hardiness of the space agency&#8217;s equipment.
<h2>Search and Rescue</h2>
In a serendipitous twist, the device — called a Lunar Retroreflector Array (LRA) — happens to function as a sort of beacon. The spherical gadget, full of cubic quartz mirrors, is meant to help guide spacecraft into precise landings, sort of like the lights illuminating an airport runway. That means that NASA scientists could feasibly go find it in a followup mission.
&#8220;Yes, we believe the laser reflector array would have survived the crash, although it may have separated from the main spacecraft body,&#8221; MIT scientist David Smith told Space.com. &#8220;Of course, we do not know the orientation of the array. It could be upside down, but it has a 120-degree angle of reception, and we only need 1 of the 0.5-inch cubes for detection. But it has certainly not made it any easier.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.space.com/did-nasa-experiment-survive-beresheet-crash.html">Did NASA Experiment Survive Israeli Moon Lander&#8217;s Crash?</a> [Space.com]
More on Beresheet: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/failed-moon-landing-israel-beresheet-2">After Failed Moon Landing, Israel Vows to Try Again</a>

"Of course, we do not know the orientation of the array."

Incredibly tough NASA sensor may have survived Moon lander crash

Bring Him Home

NASA was using Beresheet to send a small beacon to the Moon. Beresheet crashed, but the beacon may have survived, and NASA wants to go find it.

Incredibly Tough NASA Sensor May Have Survived Moon Lander Crash

Scientists are planning to hunt down the missing device.

<h2>Record Setter</h2>
NASA astronaut Christina Koch joined the crew aboard the International Space Station in March, and on Wednesday, NASA announced plans to extend her space mission until February 2020.
Not only will the extension make Koch just the second astronaut to spend nearly a year in space and earn her the record for longest space stay by a woman — but the data from her trip could help humanity reach Mars.
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<h2>ISS Insights</h2>
In total, Koch will spend 328 days in space. That&#8217;s just shy of <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-genetic-changes-space-travel-temporary" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scott Kelly&#8217;s</a> record 340-days-long space mission, which yielded incredibly <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-twin-study-kelly-preliminary" target="_blank" rel="noopener">valuable data</a> regarding the impact of longterm spaceflight on the human body.
That&#8217;s important because we have a lot to learn about how <a href="https://futurism.com/cancer-risk-astronauts-long-missions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">longterm spaceflight</a> affects humans before we can send astronauts to Mars. Jennifer Fogarty, chief scientist of NASA&#8217;s Human Research Program, thinks Koch&#8217;s mission will help us get there.
&#8220;NASA is looking to build on what we have learned with additional astronauts in space for more than 250 days,&#8221; she said in a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-first-flight-record-setting-mission" target="_blank" rel="noopener">news release</a>. &#8220;Christina’s extended mission will provide additional data for NASA’s Human Research Program and continue to support future missions to the Moon and Mars.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-first-flight-record-setting-mission" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA Announces First Flight, Record-Setting Mission</a> [NASA]
More on Scott Kelly: <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-genetic-changes-space-travel-temporary" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA: Genetic Changes Caused by Space Travel Are Temporary</a>

Astronaut Christina Koch is about to make history.

NASA announces plan to keep astronaut in space for 328 days

Get Comfortable

By extending astronaut Christina Koch's space mission to 328 days, NASA hopes to glean new insights into the impact of longterm spaceflight on humans.

NASA Announces Plan to Keep Astronaut in Space for 328 Days

And the mission could help us finally send humans to Mars.

<h2>Balloon Animals</h2>
NASA is investing in robots that do away with hard metal chassis and instead navigate by rapidly inflating and deflating air-filled sacs.
Scientists from Brigham Young University teamed up with the startup Pneubotics to build an inflatable robot named King Louie, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/inflatable-robots-for-space">according to IEEE Spectrum</a>. The robot looks sort of like a Rock &#8216;Em Sock &#8216;Em Robot crossbred with a Bobo Doll — but its slightly unnerving appearance could be worth the benefits that NASA expects inflatable bots to bring to space missions.
<h2>Floppy Drive</h2>
Inflatable robots could serve as a lightweight, space-efficient alternative to metallic robots or <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasas-insight-lander-just-flexed-its-arm-to-take-some-more-pictures">robotic arms</a> on NASA&#8217;s rovers, shuttles, or space stations, IEEE Spectrum reports.
But there are still some hurdles to overcome, most notably the fact that the floppy robots find themselves in slightly different orientations each time they&#8217;re deflated and blown up again.
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<h2>Blowing Up</h2>
Those slight differences can make it difficult to program the robot&#8217;s limbs as one would a metal robot. But the Brigham Young scientists found a way to guide and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTCRr63bpeM">train the robot&#8217;s movements</a> so that it learns how high or far to reach no matter the slight variations caused by being inflated.
King Louie isn&#8217;t ready for blastoff quite yet, but as it gets better at controlling its bulk, astronauts may soon get a floppy, air-filled helping hand.
READ MORE: <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/inflatable-robots-for-space">Inflatable Robots Are Destined for Space, If We Can Control Them</a> [IEEE Spectrum]
More on NASA Robots: <a href="https://futurism.com/interview-nasa-insight-robotic-arm">Here’s How NASA Dreams up Robotic Arms for Landers</a>

"King Louie" may someday flop its way up into space.

NASA is building inflatable robot astronauts

Long May It Reign

NASA is paying a team of scientists to build an inflatable robot that can move and grasp things by selectively inflating chambers that act like muscles.

NASA is Building Inflatable Robot Astronauts

King Louie's air chambers can rapidly inflate to act like muscles.

<h2>Lunar Water Cycle</h2>
The Moon is losing its water.
Beneath its dusty surface, our moon has a thin, lightly-hydrated layer. But <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0345-3">new NASA research</a>, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, shows that it&#8217;s being gradually sucked dry by meteoroid impacts.
<h2>Vapor Waves</h2>
After a meteoroid smashes the water out to the Moon&#8217;s surface, the force of the impact coupled with the absence of an atmosphere causes it to vaporize, according to the research.
About a third of the vapor falls back down to <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-lunar-reconnaissance-orbiter-moving-water-moon">the Moon&#8217;s surface</a>, but the rest is kicked out into space — where one recent puff of vapor was detected by the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), an orbital robot analyzing the Moon&#8217;s thin atmosphere.
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<h2>Dropping Bombs</h2>
LADEE&#8217;s findings help explain why there are icy craters on the Moon&#8217;s surface, according to NASA. These icy deposits are in areas where low temperatures prevent the ice from vaporizing, so it&#8217;s just left sitting on the surface after an impact dug it up from beneath the surface.
&#8220;The water being lost is likely ancient,&#8221; said NASA scientist Mehdi Benna in a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2019/ladee-lunar-water/">NASA press release</a> published Monday, &#8220;either dating back to the formation of the Moon or deposited early in its history.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2019/ladee-lunar-water/">Meteoroid Strikes Eject Precious Water From Moon</a> [NASA Goddard newsroom]
More on Moon water: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/australia-mine-moon-water">Australia Has a Plan to Mine Moon Water</a>

Meteoroid strikes smash water out of the Moon's surface

Moon Juice

New NASA research shows that meteoroid strikes are digging up and vaporizing the Moon's already-scarce stores of surface water.

Meteoroid Strikes Smash Water out of the Moon’s Surface

The Moon's thin layer of water is getting vaporized and kicked out into space.

<h2>Space Besties</h2>
NASA has a plan to defend Earth from an incoming asteroid — and it&#8217;s now tapped SpaceX to help carry it out.
On Friday, NASA <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-asteroid-redirect-test-mission-300831286.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that it had selected Elon Musk&#8217;s SpaceX to provide launch services for its $69 million <a href="https://futurism.com/planetary-defense-nasa-asteroid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)</a> mission — adding to the <a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ever-growing list</a> of collaborations between the two entities.
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<h2>Collision Course</h2>
NASA&#8217;s DART mission will launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket in California in June 2021. The goal is to smash a satellite into the Didymos asteroid&#8217;s small moon in October 2022.
If all goes according to plan, the collision will change the asteroid&#8217;s motion, and NASA will be able to use what it learns from the mission to redirect a future asteroid on track to impact Earth, saving humanity from potential extinction à la the dinosaurs.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/12/spacex-nasa-mission-redirect-asteroid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SpaceX will assist NASA&#8217;s first-ever mission to redirect an asteroid</a> [Engadget]
More on NASA&#8217;s DART mission: <a href="https://futurism.com/planetary-defense-nasa-asteroid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA Scientist: Asteroid Deflection Mission Not Like &#8220;Armageddon&#8221;</a>

Add another project to the list of collaborations between NASA and SpaceX.

NASA asks SpaceX to help it save Earth from incoming asteroids

DART Ahead

SpaceX will provide launch services for NASA's DART mission, which is designed to test a plan for preventing an asteroid from hitting Earth.

NASA Asks SpaceX to Help It Save Earth From Incoming Asteroids

Elon Musk's space company will provide launch services for DART.

<h2>Nurturing the Bizarre</h2>
NASA isn&#8217;t afraid to <a href="https://futurism.com/mars-robotic-bees-nasa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">take a chance on the weird</a>. In fact, it has a program designed for that specific purpose, called <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC)</a> — and on Wednesday, the agency announced 18 bizarre new projects receiving funding through the program.
&#8220;Our NIAC program nurtures visionary ideas that could transform future NASA missions by investing in revolutionary technologies,&#8221; NASA exec Jim Reuter said in a <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2019-064" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>. &#8220;We look to America&#8217;s innovators to help us push the boundaries of space exploration with new technology.&#8221;
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<h2>Sci-Fi to Sci-Fact</h2>
The 18 newly funded projects are divided into two groups: Phase I and Phase II.
The 12 recipients of the Phase I awards will each receive approximately $125,000 to fund nine month&#8217;s worth of feasibility studies for their concepts. These include a project to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2019_Phase_I_Phase_II/Power_Beaming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">beam power</a> through Venus&#8217; atmosphere to support long-term missions, a spacesuit with <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2019_Phase_I_Phase_II/SmartSuit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">self-healing skin</a>, and <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2019_Phase_I_Phase_II/MP4AE/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">floating microprobes</a> inspired by spiders.
The six Phase II recipients, meanwhile, will each receive up to $500,000 to support two-year studies dedicated to fine-tuning their concepts and investigating potential ways to implement the technologies, which include a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2019_Phase_I_Phase_II/The_Most/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">flexible telescope</a>, a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2019_Phase_I_Phase_II/Astrophysics_and_Technical_Lab_Studies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">neutrino detector</a>, and materials for <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2019_Phase_I_Phase_II/Solar_Surfing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">solar surfing</a>.
&#8220;NIAC is about going to the edge of science fiction, but not over,&#8221; Jason Derleth, NIAC program executive, said in the press release. &#8220;We are supporting high impact technology concepts that could change how we explore within the solar system and beyond.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2019-064" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA Invests in Potentially Revolutionary Tech Concepts</a> [Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
More on bizarre NASA plans: <a href="https://futurism.com/mars-robotic-bees-nasa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New NASA Plan for Mars Is Moderately-Terrifying-Sounding, Also, Completely-Awesome: Robotic. Bees.</a>

These projects go "to the edge of science fiction, but not over."

NASA is funding the development of 18 bizarre new projects

Weird Science

Through the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, NASA funds projects that go "to the edge of science fiction, but not over."

NASA Is Funding the Development of 18 Bizarre New Projects

They include spider-inspired microprobes and a flexible telescope.

<h2>Space Volcanoes</h2>
Metallic asteroids — giant balls of iron sailing through the cosmos — may have once harbored epic space volcanoes, new research suggests.
As these asteroids solidified from molten iron, liquid trapped at the core may have erupted outward, <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL082542">according to a study</a> published Monday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The research is pretty metal, yes — but it also shines new light on the origins of the asteroids cruising through our solar system.
<h2>Two Options</h2>
The UC Santa Cruz scientists behind the discovery found two possible ways that the metallic asteroids could have formed, according to a <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-04-iron-volcanoes-erupted-metal-asteroids.html">press release</a>.
Operating under the assumption that the asteroids originated as floating balls of molten iron, the scientists&#8217; models predict that some cooled from the inside out. But those that crystallized on the outer surface first may have then exploded as the molten iron trapped in their cores forced its way out, carving volcanic tunnels along the way.
<h2>Home-Grown</h2>
The scientists don&#8217;t expect to find much evidence of volcanic activity on asteroids that are still out there in orbit, as any volcanic craters that once existed have likely since worn away.
&#8220;It&#8217;s not clear what they might look like now,&#8221; planetary scientist Jacob Abrahams said in the press release.
Rather, the scientists argue that the best bet for verifying their models would be studying samples from metallic asteroids that have crashed into Earth.
READ MORE: <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-04-iron-volcanoes-erupted-metal-asteroids.html">Iron volcanoes may have erupted on metal asteroids</a> [UC Santa Cruz newsroom via Phys.org]
More on asteroids: <a href="https://futurism.com/space-kingdom-asteroid-impact-humanity">The “Space Nation” Warns That an Asteroid Could Wipe out Humanity</a>

It's the most metal research of the year.

Explosive research: Some asteroids may have had volcanoes

Metal Volcanoes

New research shows that metallic asteroids may have once been home to volcanoes, as molten metal trapped beneath the surface erupted outward.

Explosive Research: Some Asteroids May Have Had Volcanoes

As metallic asteroids crystalized, molten iron at their cores may have exploded out.

<h2>Not the Bees!</h2>
NASA is sending a pair of &#8220;robotic bees&#8221; to the space station later this month, <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/space-station-to-take-delivery-of-flying-astrobee-robots/">according to Digital Trends</a> — a project the space agency is positioning as one of the most advanced space collaborations between humans and robots.
&#8220;Astrobee is a robot that will soon be flying around the International Space Station (ISS) alongside the astronauts,&#8221; reads a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/astrobee">NASA page</a> about the bees, which it says will &#8220;help scientists and engineers develop and test technologies for use in zero-gravity&#8221; and &#8220;help the astronauts do their routine chores.&#8221;
<h2>The Sting</h2>
According to a <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160007769.pdf">spec sheet</a>, the Astrobees — which look vaguely like the &#8220;Weighted Companion Cube&#8221; from the hit Valve video game &#8220;Portal&#8221; — are outfitted with air impellers for movement, small robotic arm for gripping, and a variety of sensors, lasers, and input devices to allow it to interact with astronauts and the ISS environment.
The robo-bees will also have an intriguing telepresence component: NASA employees back in Houston will be able to jack into the floating bots from the ground, according to the space agency, giving them &#8220;eyes and ears&#8221; <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-station-iss-experience-vr">on board the ISS</a>.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/space-station-to-take-delivery-of-flying-astrobee-robots/">Robotic bees are set to invade the International Space Station</a> [Digital Trends]
More on the ISS: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-station-iss-experience-vr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">See the Stunning New Trailer for a VR Series Filmed on the ISS</a>

"Astrobee is a robot that will soon be flying around the International Space Station alongside the astronauts."

NASA is sending cute "robotic bees" to the space station

A Bee C

NASA is sending a pair of "robotic bees" to the ISS — a project the space agency is positioning as one of the most advanced experiments in space robotics.

NASA Is Sending Cute “Robotic Bees” to the Space Station

They look kind of like the "Weighted Companion Cube" from the videogame "Portal."

NASA’s InSight lander touched down on the surface of Mars in November. Its mission: to unravel secrets about the creation of the planets in our solar system. Crucial to that mission: a broom-length <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-insight-lander-placed-seismometer-surface-of-mars">robotic arm</a> that it slowly extended after landing to place a number of sensitive scientific instruments on the Martian surface — and even drill into the planet itself.
To find out more about what it takes to manipulate a robotic arm on the surface of a distant planet, Futurism talked to Al Tadros, VP of Space Infrastructure and Civil Space at SSL — where he manages the company’s relationship with NASA and helps invent the most sophisticated robot arms ever to leave Earth.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Futurism: There are only five robotic arms on Mars, all five of them built by SSL. How did you become NASA&#8217;s go-to contractor for robotic arms?
Al Tadros: There have been five robotic arms operated on Mars and we&#8217;ve been fortunate to build all five of those, the most recent of which was the InSight Lander arm. We started out as a spin off from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory about 20 years ago from a core team that was passionate about science and wanted to initiate robotic capabilities that can help JPL.
F: Mars is tens of millions of miles from the nearest repair shop. How do you approach the design of something that absolutely needs to work, even with nobody around to fix it?
AT: Part of the core of the space industry is that it&#8217;s necessary to build hardware that functions for years without maintenance. So yes, the robotics are under extreme environmental conditions, but we have a lot of satellites that we build that have to be qualified and operated in extreme conditions as well. So we have processes, suppliers, tests and programs that test the reliability of all of what we build.
The robotics on Mars have some unique environments that they have to withstand. Whereas many of our satellites were built in a cleanroom and launched and operated in the vacuum of space, the Mars landers actually go through a thin atmosphere and land on a dusty surface. When they reach a destination they have to work in a day and night environment meaning that temperature extremes with a slight atmosphere and with dust being blown around. And that does pose unique challenges for robotic or mechanical systems like the Mars landers.
<figure id="attachment_155704" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-155704 size-large" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2019/03/22211_PIA22876-16_web-1200x675.png" alt="" width="1200" height="675" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image Credit: NASA</figcaption></figure>
F: How do you simulate the Martian surface? Do you test somewhere on Earth that’s Mars-like?
AT: Good question. First of all, for hardware or spacecraft that we build, we have to put it in a container and take it to a launch site and put it on the rocket. And for the first few minutes when the rocket is going up, it&#8217;s being vibrated hard and it has a lot of acoustic vibrations on it — like being at a rock concert — being shaken on a stage. So we literally put it on a vibration stand and shake it in a similar fashion so that we can verify that the design meets and survives the launch.
<q class="pullquote">It&#8217;s being vibrated hard and it has a lot of acoustic vibrations on it — like being at a rock concert — being shaken on a stage.</q>
When you don&#8217;t have air and you don&#8217;t have thermal properties of air, you have different kinds of thermal behavior from your spacecraft. We simulate that in a vacuum chamber called a thermal vacuum chamber for that reason.
F: Let&#8217;s talk about the multitasking abilities of InSight. It has a handful of major scientific instruments onboard and the robotic arm plays a pretty crucial role in their deployment. How do you approach an engineering task like this?
AT: These missions are science driven so the lead for these missions will be a scientist who has a primary set of assigned objectives they&#8217;re trying to achieve. For the Mars InSight Lander that means placing the critical payloads on the surface of Mars.
For Mars 2020, which is the next mission we are working on now, we&#8217;re actually building the Mars sample handling arm which is collecting samples from the surface. And there you want to maintain a pristine sample that might be returned back to Earth, meaning there are unique requirements for that.
<figure id="attachment_155705" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-155705 size-large" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2019/03/IDS_test_big-1200x800.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin</figcaption></figure>
F: What&#8217;s the next phase of the InSight mission specifically that you&#8217;re personally most excited to see?
AT: It goes back to the very impetus of the mission — the science. What InSight is doing is studying the inner planets in our solar system. So what we study on Mars has applications here on Earth and the evolution of our own planet. And it helps us understand the solar system in a broader sense.
The unique thing about studying Mars is that humans have populated a lot of the land mass here on Earth and there&#8217;s a lot of human induced activities, vibration, and noise pollution that we generate. On Mars you don&#8217;t have that. So we can actually study a pristine rocky planet.
F: Do you envision SSL having a role in the human exploration of Mars? There&#8217;s a lot of talk about taking humans to the surface of Mars.
AT: It could be decades but people are working on it already — in a number of ways. Even NASA right now is focused on going forward to the Moon but in a sustainable way. But many of the capabilities they&#8217;re deploying around the Moon and on the surface of the Moon are to demonstrate and evolve and advance our ability to go to Mars and further.
F: Speaking of sending human astronauts to Mars, do you worry that crewed missions could be leapfrogged by robotic technology?
AT: There are two aspects to that. One is, can we put humans on Mars or on the surface of the Moon? And the other is: what is it that we want us humans to do? There is an exploration gene in humanity — whether it&#8217;s getting to the top of Mount Everest or probing the reason for existence or exploring our solar system. Humans are very much an exploratory species, so I think that there will always be that human element. And robotics will be used to push the envelope.
<q class="pullquote">There is an exploration gene in humanity — whether it&#8217;s getting to the top of Mount Everest or probing the reason for existence or exploring our solar system.</q>
As you probably noticed last week, we had the first commercial crew capsule that launched and returned to Earth, which was a phenomenal milestone. It harkens back to the start of the aviation industry, when airplanes were very experimental, but became very common place within decades.
<figure id="attachment_155701" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-155701 size-full" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2019/03/insight1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="600" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image Credit: NASA</figcaption></figure>
F: Do you apply AI technology at all in your robotic arms, especially regarding InSight?
AT: We’re not building the software that operates it. That&#8217;s JPL’s job. The rovers and the robotics on Mars are basically given a command to move to a point and wait for the next command. Or a sequence of commands are given and it follows that sequence as long as all the telemetry is green. If it runs into a problem it stops and waits for the operator back on Earth. So it&#8217;s a rudimentary type of control, but it&#8217;s very conservative and safe because we don&#8217;t need to operate quickly.
Once you get humans or other time critical elements involved, there is interest in how you automate it or how you improve the time efficiency — because the astronaut&#8217;s time is precious.
We haven&#8217;t implemented AI on the Mars arms before, but with software and processing and algorithms now advancing so rapidly I believe that not only Gateway, but all future robotic systems will have some levels of autonomy and artificial intelligence embedded in them.
F: Anything else you wanted to talk about?
AT: One of the most exciting aspects of space robotics right now is the potential to assemble spacecraft, space telescopes, and other platforms in space.
A spacecraft the size of the Space Station could never be built and launched on one launch vehicle. If you open up your thinking to building communication satellites, space telescopes, habitats in space — that&#8217;s what I believe that we&#8217;re now approaching, which harkens back to the von Braun space station from the 1940s and sci-fi. What we&#8217;re going to get to is an era in space where we are not limited by the size of a launch vehicle.

"There is an exploration gene in humanity — whether it's getting to the top of Mount Everest or probing the reason for existence or exploring our solar system."

Here's how NASA dreams up robotic arms for landers

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<h2>&#8220;Unacceptable&#8221; Threat</h2>
On March 27, India <a href="https://futurism.com/india-just-shot-down-a-live-satellite" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tested a satellite-destroying missile</a> by blowing up one of its own satellites, which was orbiting about 186 miles above the Earth.
&#8220;The test was done in the lower atmosphere to ensure that there is no space debris,&#8221; the Ministry of External Affairs <a href="https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm?dtl/31179/Frequently+Asked+Questions+on+Mission+Shakti+Indias+AntiSatellite+Missile+test+conducted+on+27+March+2019" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote on its website</a>. &#8220;Whatever debris that is generated will decay and fall back onto the earth within weeks.&#8221;
But NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is publicly disagreeing, telling the agency&#8217;s employees <a href="https://youtu.be/o2gz2E-Wrws" target="_blank" rel="noopener">during a Monday town hall</a> that 24 pieces of debris are now at an altitude above the International Space Station&#8217;s 250 miles, posing an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-junk-india-destroying-missile-threaten-international-space-station-terrible-thing-2019-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;unacceptable&#8221; threat</a> to the astronauts on board.
<h2>Dangerous Debris</h2>
According to Bridenstine, NASA is now tracking about 60 pieces of debris from India&#8217;s satellite, each about six inches or bigger, but other pieces not large enough to track could pose a threat to the ISS as well.
In total, he says India&#8217;s satellite test has increased the likelihood of the ISS colliding with debris by 44 percent over a 10-day period.
&#8220;That is a terrible, terrible thing to create an event that sends debris at an apogee that goes above the International Space Station,&#8221; Bridenstine said. &#8220;That kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human spaceflight.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-junk-india-destroying-missile-threaten-international-space-station-terrible-thing-2019-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8216;A terrible, terrible thing&#8217;: NASA said India&#8217;s satellite destruction created so much space junk it now threatens the safety of the International Space Station</a>
More on the satellite: <a href="https://futurism.com/india-just-shot-down-a-live-satellite" target="_blank" rel="noopener">India Just Shot Down a Satellite With a Missile</a>

India's missile test has increased the likelihood of damage to the ISS.

NASA: When India blew up a satellite, it endangered astronauts

Collision Course

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has told the agency's employees that India's satellite destruction test has put the ISS in danger.

/Nasa