What does it take to be selected for space missions? Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station reveal the key crucial characteristics that make up "the right stuff." Space agencies around the world are developing AI companions to help astronauts stave off loneliness, combat space-induced mental illness and assist with work on multi-year trips. "Deep space travel will pose unique challenges to crew, challenges that are inherently different from those currently experienced on orbit," Alexandra Whitmire, a scientist with NASA's Human Factors and Behavioral Performance team, told Space.com. "Given the distance of Mars, for example, the duration of such a mission will last around 2.5 years."

IBM yesterday announced it would be providing the AI brain for a robot being built by Airbus to accompany astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). When only the best of the best will do, it looks like Watson has the right stuff. The robot, which looks like a flying volleyball with a low-resolution face, is being deployed with German astronaut Alexander Gerst in June for a six month mission. It's called CIMON, an acronym for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, and it's headed to space to do science stuff. It'll help crew members conduct medical experiments, study crystals, and play with a Rubix cube.

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, refused to give up easily. Its first three attempts to launch its Falcon 1 rocket between 2006 and 2008 failed. In 2010, the company then shifted to building a much bigger rocket called Falcon 9. Gradually, it began to deliver cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. The next decade saw the California-based aerospace company transform itself because of its ability to lower the cost of space travel drastically. On May 27, 2020, NASA launched people for the first time in 10 years aboard a rocket owned not by NASA but SpaceX: a Dragon 2 capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket.

There was a time where astronauts on the International Space Station were all alone. But with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, now they feel less lonely. Crew Interactive MObileCompanioN (CIMON) is an AI Astronaut Assistant that is developed by German space agency DLR, Airbus, and IBM. The project lead for this first free-flying AI astronaut, Matthias Biniok, was approached for this big project in 2016. Their main aim, was to build a robot and send it into space for providing assistance.

Artificial intelligence has been making waves in recent years, enabling us to solve problems faster than traditional computing could ever allow. Recently, for example, Google's artificial intelligence subsidiary DeepMind developed AlphaFold2, a program that solved the protein-folding problem. This is a problem that has had baffled scientists for 50 years. Advances in AI have allowed us to make progress in all kinds of disciplines – and these are not limited to applications on this planet. From designing missions to clearing Earth's orbit of junk, here are a few ways artificial intelligence can help us venture further into space. Do you remember Tars and Case, the assistant robots from the film Interstellar?

Cobots or collaborative robots are robots that are built for direct contact and interaction with humans like a robot dog or a robotic vacuum. There have been a surprising amount of cobots in space. CIMON was made by IBM, AIRBUS and the DLR (German Aerospace Center). The original CIMON was first proposed in 2016 and went to the ISS in 2018 for 14 months. CIMON 2 went up to the ISS on December 5th, 2019 and it is scheduled to stay there for 3 years.

Since its initiation, AI has captured the attention of the world owing to its wide range of capabilities. Even NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has been planning to enlist AI for future space exploration and other programs. Recently in June 2020, the American space agency announced that it has been training the system of AI that will aid scientists in their quest to look for signs of ancient life on Mars and other planets and moons. The program will be spearheaded by the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosalind Franklin'ExoMars' rover mission. It will be heading for the red planet in 2022/23, before moving beyond to moons such as Jupiter's Europa, and of Saturn's Enceladus and Titan.

Cimon stands for Crew Interactive MObile companioN and is a reference to Simon Smith - the genius doctor known as the "flying brain" - from the science fiction story "Captain Future". Cimon is 3D printed and is just 32 centimetres in diameter - no bigger than a basketball and just 5kg in mass (0N in weight as space is a vacuum). Cimon was initially conceived by the DLR (German Space Agency) to help astronaut Alexander Gerst with science experiments in the Columbus Laboratory aboard the International Space Station. Developed by Airbus for the DLR, Cimon acts as a test bed to assess the potential feasibility of future intelligent robots in space - seeing whether they have the capability to simplify work life onboard the ISS. Cimon's'flying brain' was provided by IBM - its brain will be continuously updated over the air via IBM's Cloud, allowing Cimon to stay on the ISS for prolonged periods of time.

He said: "Besides improved hardware, one of the major updates to CIMON-2 is the addition of IBM Watson Tone Analyzer. Watson Tone Analyzer allows the robot to detect emotions in conversations with the astronauts, which allows it to become an empathetic conversational partner to them. "A further goal of the project is to explore how an intelligent assistant like CIMON can reduce stress for astronauts. "As a partner and companion in space, CIMON supports them in their work on experiments and maintenance onboard the ISS, ultimately reducing their stress exposure. "For example, CIMON can provide information on next steps for an experiment or take photos and videos of a specific point in the lab, to help the astronauts by assisting in their daily work.

Friedrichshafen, 15 April 2020 – CIMON-2, the updated version of the CIMON astronaut assistant, developed and built by Airbus for the German Aerospace Center Space Administration (DLR), has now demonstrated its capabilities during initial tests on the International Space Station (ISS). The free-flying, spherical technology demonstrator with artificial intelligence (AI) showed off a number of its features during interactions with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano. CIMON-2 started its journey to the ISS on 05 December 2019, launching with the CRS-19 supply mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is scheduled to stay on the ISS for up to three years. Just shy of two months after the successful first use of CIMON-2, the project team has now received the analysis.