CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s humanoid robot has finally awakened in space.

Ground controllers turned Robonaut on Monday for the first time since it was delivered to the International Space Station in February. The test involved sending power to all of Robonaut’s systems. The robot was not commanded to move; that will happen next week.

“Those electrons feel GOOD! One small step for man, one giant leap for tinman kind,” Robonaut posted in a Twitter update. (All right, so a Robonaut team member actually posted Monday’s tweets under AstroRobonaut.)

The four visible light cameras that serve as Robonaut’s eyes turned on in the gold-colored head, as did the infrared camera, located in the robot’s mouth and needed for depth perception. One of Robonaut’s tweets showed the view inside the American lab, Destiny.

The main computers – buried inside Robonaut’s stomach – kicked on, as did the more than 30 processors embedded in the arms for controlling the joints.

Robonaut – the first humanoid robot in space – is being tested as a possible astronaut’s helper.

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The robot was delivered on space shuttle Discovery’s final flight. It took this long for the operating software to get up there, and for the astronauts to have enough time to help with the experiment.

On Sept. 1, controllers will command Robonaut to move its fingers, hands and arms.

“It’s been asleep for about a year, so it kind of has to stretch out a little bit,” deputy project manager Nicolaus Radford said. “Just like a crew member has to kind of acclimate themselves to zero gravity, our robot has to do a very similar thing, kind of wiggle itself and learn how it needs to move” in weightlessness.

 


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