NASA's Robonaut 2 Droid Gets Its Legs on Space Station

NASA astronaut Steve Swanson poses with the robot Robonaut 2 on the International Space Station after completing an upgrade that gave the robot legs.

Credit: NASA/Steve Swanson

Look out, astronauts, your companion robot on the International Space Station is now mobile!

NASA's Robonaut 2 has received a set of legs that will help it move around the station, and will eventually enable the bot to work on repairs both inside and outside the orbiting outpost.

NASA astronaut Steve Swanson, who commanded the station's Expedition 40 crew, helped attach the appendages to the humanoid robot in late August before returning to Earth last week.

The legs will help the robot move around the space station to complete simple tasks.

Later this year, after a few changes to its upper body, later this year, Robonaut 2 will use its new legs to venture outside for its first spacewalk as well.

"You can only do so much if you're fixed on a stanchion, which is what we've been on for the past couple of years," Ron Diftler, principal investigator for the Robonaut project, said in a televised interview on NASA Television. "With the addition of legs, we'll be able to go mobile."



While the upper half of Robonaut looks a lot like a human, the legs don't resemble a person's legs very much.

Instead of feet, the robot has clamps that allow it to latch onto and climb up on objects.

The legs are also longer than human legs, a span of 9 feet (2.7 meters), and are more flexible, giving the robot more ways to cling to things inside or outside the station.

"In space, you don't use your human legs in the way you use them on the ground," Diftler said. "We didn't adhere to the human form because it didn't make any sense."

"NASA researchers did not even have legs in mind when they sent Robonaut 2 to the space station in 2011, but it was possible to add the appendages with some upgrades to the robot's wiring and computer systems."



The legs were flown to the space station aboard a cargo ship in April.Yet, even while it was fixed in place, Robonaut 2 was occasionally used by space station crews.

In February 2012, Robonaut shook hands with Expedition 30 commander Dan Burbank, and earlier this year, the bot used a "task board" to test its ability to manipulate knobs, switches and buttons.

More recently, Robonaut has been put to work moving "soft goods," such as covers that provide thermal protection for space station components.

Last year, astronaut Tom Marshburn tested teleoperating Robonaut, using virtual reality gear to control the robot and have it catch a free-floating object.

Climbing Legs for Robonaut 2 Headed to International Space Station

NASA has built and is sending a set of high-tech legs up to the International Space Station for Robonaut 2 (R2), the station's robotic crewmember. 

The new legs are scheduled to launch on the SpaceX-3 commercial cargo flight to the International Space Station, scheduled to launch Monday, April 14 at 4:58 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

These new legs, funded by NASA's Human Exploration and Operations and Space Technology mission directorates, will provide R2 the mobility it needs to help with regular and repetitive tasks inside and outside the space station. 


The goal is to free up the crew for more critical work, including scientific research.

Once the legs are attached to the R2 torso, the robot will have a fully extended leg span of nine feet, giving it great flexibility for movement around the space station.

Each leg has seven joints and a device on what would be the foot, called an "end effector," which allows the robot to take advantage of handrails and sockets inside and outside the station. 

A vision system for the end effectors also will be used to verify and eventually automate each limb's approach and grasp.

Image Credit: NASA

NASA Robonaut 2: Humanoid Learning Medical Skills for Space Emergencies - Video

NASA is training Robonaut 2, a humanoid space robot to pull double duty as an emergency doctor in space — a surrogate physician that could one day be controlled by experts on Earth to help sick or injured astronauts.

The $2.5 million Robonaut 2, nicknamed R2, is designed to work alongside the astronauts and even take over some of their more tedious duties inside and outside the International Space Station.

The new NASA training is adding telemedicine skills to that mix.

In a new video of Robonaut 2's telemedicine training, the automaton performed an ultrasound scan on a mannequin and even used a syringe like it would to administer a real-life injection.

The tests were performed using a ground-based version of R2 robot, the mechanical twin of the one currently aboard the space station.

Zsolt Garami

"I would say that within an hour I trained him more than with other students I'm working for a week, so I think that he's learning really fast," Dr. Zsolt Garami, of the Houston Methodist Research Institute, says in the video.

Far from earthly hospitals, astronauts who currently live on space station, typically in six-month-long stints, must be trained in basic surgery and medical procedures in case of an emergency.

But Robonaut 2, which has a camera-equipped head, could administer care to spaceflyers, controlled by doctors on the ground.

So far, tests with Robonaut 2 have shown that human controllers can perform tasks "correctly and efficiently by using R2's dexterity to apply the appropriate level of force and can track their progress using R2's vision system," NASA officials explained in a video description.

Garami said the robot might eventually be able to learn to do some tasks on its own.

NASA's Robonaut 2 and Dr. Zsolt Garami, of the Houston Methodist Research Institute, practice telemedicine techniques during a test of the robot's bedside manner. 

This image is a still from a NASA video documenting the Robonaut 2 test. 

Credit: NASA

Robonaut 2, NASA's Humanoid Space Robot, Will Get Legs Soon - Video

NASA's humanoid robot astronaut is getting its space legs. 

The space agency is building lower limbs for Robonaut 2, a robot designed to eventually help astronauts by taking over some of their duties on the International Space Station. 

R2, as NASA calls it, is currently legless with its torso attached to a support post in the orbiting outpost. 

The new NASA video of Robonaut 2 with legs shows the strange ways the robotic limbs can move.