CIMON the AI-based astronaut assistant gets working on the ISS

CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile CompanioN), developed and built by Airbus for the German Aerospace Center (DLR), worked with Gerst in the Columbus module of the ISS for around 90 minutes.

Gerst has been aboard the ISS since 8 June 2018 and his six-month horizons mission includes conducting tests with CIMON, a platform that could lead to similar machines that provide support to ISS crews.

“We are entering uncharted territory and pushing the boundaries of technological expertise in Germany,” said Dr Christian Karrasch, CIMON project manager at the DLR Space Agency.

Testing started in November 15, 2018, after software uploads to the ISS and CIMON itself. Following an audio check and a test of the navigation camera, Gerst came face to ‘face’ with CIMON, which was activated for the first time.

Bernd Rattenbacher, team leader at the ground control centre at Lucerne University, said: “The data link to Earth is established via satellite to NASA/ESA and to the DLR’s Columbus control centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. From there, the signal is transmitted to us, the CIMON ground station at BIOTESC in Lucerne, the Swiss User Support and Operations Center, which is connected to the IBM Cloud in Frankfurt over the internet. The time needed for the signal to be transmitted via satellite is 0.4 seconds each way. A number of firewalls and VPN tunnels are in place to ensure data security.”