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.

Cimon, the world's first AI-powered astronaut assistant, has returned to the International Space Station--this time with a heightened ability to analyse human emotion. The objective, according to the researchers who fine-tuned the robot after its first successful mission aboard the spacecraft, is to transform Cimon from a scientific assistant into "an empathetic companion". As was the original Cimon, which spent 14 months in space, the new and improved Cimon-2 is a joint project by IBM, Airbus and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Cimon-1 returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) in August. Cimon-2 is heading back to the space station on a SpaceX rocket that launched 4 December from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A new CIMON for the International Space Station (ISS): CIMON-2 (Crew Interactive MObile companioN) lifted off on its journey into space on 5 December 2019. This modified version of the astronaut assistant has been equipped for new tasks and was developed and built in Germany. Like its predecessor, CIMON-2 will be deployed in the Columbus European research module. CIMON is a free-flying, spherical technology demonstrator for human-machine interaction and features artificial intelligence. "CIMON-1 – our prototype – landed back on Earth on 27 August 2019 after spending 14 months on the ISS, and has now arrived at Airbus in Friedrichshafen," says Dr Christian Karrasch, CIMON Project Manager at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Space Administration in Bonn.

CIMON (pronounced "simon"), the world's first AI-powered astronaut assistant, is returning to the International Space Station. Today, the US freighter SpaceX blasted off carrying on board the robot, which operates with a slight smile on its screen face. However, this time around, it will have a heightened ability to analyze human emotion. With this new update, the voice-controlled, free-flying robot has transformed from a scientific assistant to an empathetic conversational partner, a huge development for AI-powered assistants. "CIMON-2 has more sensitive microphones and a more advanced sense of orientation," explained Till Eisenberg, CIMON Project Manager at Airbus, in a statement.

The Crew Interactive Mobile Companion (or CIMON, for short) recorded a number of firsts on its initial mission to the International Space Station, which took place last November, including becoming the first-ever autonomous free-floating robot to operate aboard the station, and the first-ever smart astronaut assistant. But CIMON is much more than an Alexa for space, and CIMON-2, which launched aboard today's SpaceX ISS resupply mission, will demonstrate a number of ways the astronaut support robot can help those working in space -- from both a practical and an emotional angle. CIMON is the product of a collaboration between IBM, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Airbus, and its aim is to design and develop a robotic assistant for use in space that can serve a number of functions, including things as mundane as helping to retrieve information and keep track of tasks astronauts are doing on board the station, and as wild as potentially helping to alleviate or curb the effects of social issues that might arise from settings in which a small team works in close quarters over a long period. "The goal of mission one was really to commission CIMON and to really understand if he can actually work with the astronauts -- if there are experiments that he can support," explained IBM's Matthias Biniok, project manager on the Watson AI aspects of the mission. "So that was very successful -- the astronauts really liked working with CIMON."