INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
There a new astronaut on its way to the International Space Station this morning aboard SpaceX most recent resupply launch, and it only the
CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion) is an artificial intelligence assistant designed by Airbus and IBM to assist the European Space
Agency astronauts in everyday tasks aboard the ISS
Weighing in at just 11 pounds and roughly the size of a medicine ball, this minute astronaut is equipped with the neural network strength of
IBM Watson.
Crew members will be able to correspond with CIMON via voice commands and access a database of procedures
CIMON will also be able to detect the crew members& moods and react accordingly,Till Eisenberg, CIMON project lead at Airbus, told
SPACE.com.
In a February press release announcing CIMON arrival, Airbus said that CIMON emotional intelligence, in addition to its friendly
face and voice, will help it operate like a true crew member aboard the station
To start, CIMON even has a built-in friend.
Before setting off today, CIMON has been trained alongside German astronaut Alexander Gerst to
recognize Gerst voice and face and help him complete three different tasks while aboard the ISS
CIMON will help the geophysicist and volcanologist study crystals on the space station, solve a Rubik cube using video data and play the
role of an &intelligent camera& to document a medical experiment on-board.
CIMON mission with Gerst will take place between this June and
October 2018, but Airbus hopes that in the future CIMON will be able to observe crew members on longer missions and help scientists learn
more about the social dynamics involved in extended space flight — an issue that will be paramount for any dreams of Martian colonies to
