News Detail - Research in Germany

The operator orbits Earth at an altitude of 400 kilometres, while the assistant works on the ground. During the'SUPVIS Justin' experiment, those who send and receive commands conduct a long-distance relationship. Aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on 2 March 2018, United States astronaut Scott Tingle selected the required commands on a tablet, while the robot Justin of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) performed the necessary work on a solar panel in a terrestrial laboratory in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, as instructed. Engineers at the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics had fitted their robot with the necessary artificial intelligence so that it could perform these subtasks autonomously and without detailed individual commands. "The robot is clever, but the astronaut is always in control," says Neal Lii, the DLR project manager.