By Ellie Zolfagharifard
From hovering spheres to hopping 'hedgehogs', Nasa has chosen 13 new technologies to test for deep space mission.
The space agency will use parabolic flights and suborbital launch vehicles to see how the technologies perform in microgravity.
Among the most novel is a tumbling, hopping robot called 'Hedgehog' that will be tested on a parabolic flight that simulates weightlessness of space.
According to Nasa, these beach ball-sized Hedgehog rovers could soon be rolling around the surface of alien planets, if testing of the ground breaking design is successful.
The hedgehog probes were developed by Stanford researchers, in collaboration with Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dropped from a mothership, each rover would hop, tumble and bound across a cratered surface relaying information about its origins, as well as its soil and other surface materials.
THE CHOSEN TECHNOLOGIESUse of gecko adhesive grippers
Dragon V2 propellant device
Ten other technologies will be tested alongside the hopping robot on board the parabolic flights.
They include a universal docking ports for Spheres (Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental satellites).
Nasa hopes Spheres could eventually take over daily chores for astronauts and even handle risky duties outside of the vessel.
The space agency recently announced that it plans to send Google's 3D smartphones into space to function as the 'eyes and brains' of free-flying Spheres inside the ISS.
The football-ball sized robots can be guided around the space station's microgravity interior, propelled by tiny blasts of CO2 at about an inch per second.
The phones and universal docking ports could help provide sensors on the robots to detect sharp angles inside the space station and create a 3D map that lets the Spheres navigate from one module to another.
Another project will test a robot with legs that have microspine grippers, which could potentially explore a rocky surface, such as an asteroid.
Meanwhile, an adhesive that can turn its stickiness on and off will be tested on the parabolic flights.
The concept came from watching geckos which use incredible 'dry adhesion' - their feet are sticky enough to carry a 9lb (4.1kg) of weight up a wall without slipping
Alongside the flights, a further two projects will fly on suborbital reusable launch vehicle test flights sometime later this year and again in 2015.
They include a high performance 'green' propellant alternative to the highly toxic fuel hydrazine.
This will join the Fuel Optimal and Accurate Landing System Test Flights (Foals) which is a rugged navigation device that can that perform real-time analysis on alien terrain.
To date, there have been 138 technologies selected for test flights facilitated by Nasa's Flight Opportunities Programme.
GECKO-LIKE MACHINES COULD SOON BE CRAWLING OVER OUR SATELLITES Entities 0 Name: Nasa Count: 6 1 Name: Google Count: 1 2 Name: Ellie Zolfagharifard From Count: 1 3 Name: Fuel Optimal Count: 1 4 Name: Stanford Count: 1 5 Name: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1kUYUxr Title: NASA Cargo Launches to Space Station aboard Orbital Sciences Resupply Mission Description: WASHINGTON, July 13, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A multitude of NASA research investigations, crew provisions, hardware and science experiments from across the country is headed to the International Space Station aboard Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus spacecraft. The cargo craft launched aboard Orbital's Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 12:52 p.m.
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