jaxa

An unmanned Japanese rocket carrying more than five tons of space station hardware, scientific gear and crew supplies vaulted away from its scenic seaside launch stand in southern Japan Friday (U.S. time) and set off on weeklong flight to the International Space Station.

The powerful H-2B rocket's two hydrogen-fueled first stage engines roared to life as the countdown ticked to zero, followed a few seconds later by ignition of four strap-on solid-fuel boosters at 10:06 p.m. EDT (11:06 a.m. Saturday local time), roughly the moment Earth's rotation carried the launch pad into the … Read more

NASA's tough-looking Robonaut 2 is slated to ride the Space Shuttle Discovery into orbit this month, and now Japan says it wants to shoot its own humanoid robot to the International Space Station too.

Japan's space agency JAXA says it may put a humanoid on the ISS in 2013 so it can watch over crew members while they sleep and monitor their health and stress levels.

Engineers at the University of Tokyo and staff at advertising giant Dentsu apparently are working on the space droid.

It would be intended for communication--sending pics to Earth via Twitter and boosting public interest in the ISS. NASA, on the other hand, wants humanoid robots to perform tasks on space walks in the future.

"We are thinking in terms of a very human-like robot that would have facial expressions and be able to converse with the astronauts," JAXA's Satoshi Sano was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. … Read more

Bipedal robots taking pogo-like leaps may be the future of moon exploration, according to an idea the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency intends to test in practice.

The moon's gravity is roughly one-sixth that on Earth, which has made it hard for astronauts to maintain their balance as they tried to keep their feet on the planet's surface while walking around. The phenomenon is perhaps best associated in the popular mind with footage taken in 1969 of astronaut Neil Armstrong taking gravity-defying leaps on the moon.

But JAXA, which is among the Japanese agencies that wants to send humanoid robot explorers to the moon in lieu of humans, believes the "pogo jumping" style would be the best way for the machines to carry out future explorations.

Atsuo Takanishi of Tokyo's Waseda University is developing a software simulation of the Wabian-2R to test how a bipedal robot would fare under moon-like conditions. He recently presented his findings to the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics in Tianjin, China.

According to NewScientist, "the team chose to simulate the dynamics of a virtual robot jumping on the spot, like a punk rocker pogo dancing" because the robot's legs would need sufficient thrust to jump and also would need to absorb rapid deceleration upon landing. … Read more

Scientists have recovered part of a Japanese space probe that returned to Earth after landing on an asteroid to collect samples, and they're preparing to open it. At least The Andromeda Strain inspired them to wear helmets and body armor.

The sample container from the Hayabusa probe parachuted to a soft landing in the Australian Outback on Sunday. The fridge-size probe burned up in spectacular fashion on reentry (see the NASA video below).

There was no damage to the mushroom-shaped container, and the probe's heat shield was also found, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Hayabusa … Read more

Just as the Obama administration ditches NASA plans to return to the moon, a group in Japan is vowing to send humanoid robots there by 2015. Call it a giant leap for droidkind.

The Space Oriented Higashiosaka Leading Association (SOHLA), a satellite-manufacturing consortium in the Osaka area, has vowed to put bipedal humanoid bots on the moon in the next five years, according to a Jiji Press report. SOHLA is now developing a prototype astro-bot called "Maido-kun" that it hopes will follow in the steps of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (minus the "Dancing with the Stars" part). … Read more

I know science thinks it can do everything.

I know robots will soon be ordering us around like wait staff at the Ritz.

But I am gravely concerned about an experiment that has been going on up there in space.

Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who returned to earth Friday, had been on the International Space Station since March. And, well, I don't know quite how I am to put this, but he didn't change his underwear for a month.

I know what you're thinking. We're both thinking the same thing.

Not even in the the darkest, … Read more