Space Video of the Day - 071110

Sometimes I think that the only part of NASA that is worth anything is the Jet Propulsion Lab. If you look at the last several years, the majorly cool missions - the ones where the edge of the envelope of science are being pushed - are all being done by JPL. Today's space video of the day shows JPL's latest innovation, a robot platform called ATHELETE. There are several things I like about this ATHELETE robot. First of all, it can easily be envisioned as a common platform for plenty of future robotics missions. The design is so versatile - with the legs useable as wheels or legs or tool actuators - that dozens of future missions could all be accomplished with this same platform as a basis. Secondly, I can see how this design could be packed into a launch vehicle; when all the legs are folded up, one ends up with a hexagonal prism less than a foot tall. Third, there are lots of cameras - at least a dozen pairs of stereo cameras available, surrounding the robot body and one pair on every wheel. This is the sort of thing that all of NASA should be doing: innovating. Why is it that only JPL seems to understand that?


Space Video of the Day Archive