Sep 13 1996
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
In Marshall Space Flight Center's (MSFC's) underwater weightless simulator, NASA began testing a remotely controlled robot created by a team of researchers from the University of Maryland. Team leaders nicknamed the robot Ranger, predicting that it would one day assist astronauts aboard the Shuttle or the ISS. Project Manager Joseph Parrish pointed out that astronauts often use valuable spacewalk time completing mundane tasks, such as collecting tools, establishing footholds, and cleaning up. Scientists hoped Ranger could perform such tasks under the command of an operator located in space or even that of an operator at NASA's command center. The 8-foot-long (2.4-meter-long), 1,700-pound (770-kilogram) robot used gas thrusters, robotic arms, lights, and cameras. The academic project filled a void in experimental robot design, a program affected by NASA's budget cuts. Allowing university researchers and professors to design and test the robot cost NASA about US$8 million, far less than NASA would pay for similar projects contracted through an aerospace firm. During the tests, the University of Maryland's team operated Ranger remotely from its campus hundreds of miles away from MSFC's facility in Huntsville, Alabama.
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