In the article “Astrobee Will Find Astronauts' Lost Socks” (Ackerman, 2021), NASA intends to establish a permanent space station called Gateway. Gateway will serve as a transiting point for astronauts who are heading towards Mars. As Gateway is expected to be unoccupied for long periods of time, robots will be utilized to maintain and ensure the viability of Gateway for astronauts. This includes keeping Gateway clean and safe. To do so, NASA has included a battery of tests for prototype robots such as testing their capacity to identify and remove obstacles via signals from computer vision, discern localized areas of the station and engineering communication between them. These tests are part of NASA’s long-term goal to integrate prevailing autonomous systems of the space station and robots to be fully functional without human interventions. In essence, the robots have to effectively respond and react to the signals sent out by the autonomous systems. One such robot that was tested - Bumble, poses a problem for maneuvering around the station due to its limited mobility.
With NASA utilizing robots to maintain Gateway, the size of Astrobee and its battery lifespan has significant impacts on both the efficacy of the work and the safety regulations that are required for unmanned robots in space.
The main design of Astrobee was to be small-sized so that it can maneuver around the space station easily to complete housekeeping tasks and take videos of crew activities (Ackerman, 2017). A small robot with a smaller battery is correlated with a shorter battery lifespan and there are potential problems with this. For instance, when the battery capacity is small, there may be disruptions to its ability to complete a task in one attempt or producing segmented data which may require more human hours to configure. These problems would render astrobee to have a lower efficiency rate. According to Mian (2018), the size of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is relative to its power capacity. If the UAV is small, the duration of working hours will be shorter than if the UAV is big. Similarly, small robots like Astrobee will also have to spend more time re-charging due to its small battery capacity.
Another problem of having a short battery lifespan may result in Astrobee failing to return to its charging dock in time which will require astronauts to be deployed to assist the robot (Ackerman, 2019). It was reported that during its trial, Astrobee was often caught in obstacles like tangled cables which required the robot to identify and solve the problem (Ackerman, 2021). These higher-level tasks like identifying and solving technical issues are unprecedented problems that will consume the limited power capacity that Astrobee has. In such cases, the limited battery lifespan would be disadvantageous and decrease the efficiency of the robot.
Increasing the battery size of Astrobee would not be a viable solution for a robot that was designed to be compact and robust. To counter this problem, a possible solution is to replace the current lithium-ion batteries with Graphene Aluminum-Ion [GAI] batteries. According to Taylor (2021), GAI batteries are able to “charge up to 60 times faster than the best lithium ion cells and hold three times the energy of the best aluminum based cells” (para. 2). Thus, using GAI batteries will provide Astrobee with a three times longer lifespan to maneuver around the space station and complete its tasks. Furthermore, lithium-ion batteries were found to be flammable when overused due to the organic solvents present in these batteries. This would pose a safety issue for unmanned robots functioning in space stations. On the other hand, GAI batteries are less prone to overheating when used frequently and will therefore be a safer option than lithium-ion batteries (Jhaveri, 2020). In light of this, GAI batteries can offer a plausible solution to the limited capacity of Astrobee currently whilst maintaining its functionality and design.
However, Astrobee still has the potential of easing the workload of astronauts in space. According to Kanis (2022), Astrobee has the ability to take over regular chores to help free up time for astronauts to work on issues that require human intervention. Furthermore, the dynamic and common system created amongst the robots may also be a helpful tool in allowing them to work more effectively and maintain the unmanned space station steadfastly (Figliozzi, 2019). This is because Astrobee’s functionality and system allows it to work with other robots by sharing information with other robots promptly and even splitting the workload amongst them. Thus, Astrobee may still be able to assist astronauts when the task at hand is compatible and the time required for each task is accurately calculated.
In conclusion, I have shown the limitations of Astrobee based on its size and battery lifespan and the potential problems the robot may face. I believe that Astrobee’s potential can be maximized by improving its battery lifespan and one plausible method would be to change the type of battery used by Astrobee which will ultimately increase its efficiency and safety levels.
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References
Ackerman, E. (2017). How NASA’s Astrobee robot is bringing useful autonomy to the ISS. IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-nasa-astrobee-robot-is-bringing-
Useful-autonomy-to-the-iss
Ackerman, E. (2019). NASA launching Astrobee robots to space station. IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/nasa-launching-astrobee-robots-to-iss-tomorrow
Ackerman, E. (2021). Astrobee will find astronaut’s lost socks. IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/astrobee-nasa-gateway
Figliozzi, G. (2019). Hi Honey! NASA’s Second Astrobee Wakes Up in Space. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/ames/hi-honey-nasa-s-second-astrobee-wakes-up-in-space
Jhaveri, J. (2020). Battery safety: Top 5 reasons why lithium-ion batteries catch fire. ION Energy Inc. https://www.ionenergy.co/resources/blogs/battery-safety/
Kanis, S. (2022). What is Astrobee?. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
https://www.nasa.gov/astrobee
Mian, S. (2018). A novel battery management & charging solution for autonomous UAV systems (Publication No.: 10790304) [Master’s Thesis, Arizona State University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing
Taylor, M. (2021). Developer of aluminum-ion battery claims it charges 60 times faster than lithium-ion, offering EV range breakthrough. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-range-breakthrough-as-new-aluminum-ion-battery-charges-60-times-faster-than-lithium-ion/?sh=f9e21986d287
