'Flying brain' CIMON designed to follow German astronaut blasts off Friday

MIAMI – A floating, ball-shaped artificial intelligence robot specially trained to follow around a German astronaut at the International Space Station is scheduled to blast off Friday on its ground-breaking mission. The basketball-size device, called CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion), was described as a "flying brain" by Manfred Jaumann, head of microgravity payloads at Airbus SE. It launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Friday at 5:42 am, along with some 5,900 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of gear packed aboard SpaceX's unmanned Dragon cargo capsule. CIMON's activation will mark "a historical moment," becoming the first robot of its kind to interact with people in space, said Christian Karrasch, CIMON project manager at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), during a NASA press briefing Thursday. A project in the works for the past two years, CIMON has been trained to recognize the voice and face of Alexander Gerst, 42, a geophysicist with the European Space Agency.