The team went out into space itself, wearing the famous thick astronaut suits as they made their way through zero gravity on the outside of the International Space Station.

The team was comprised of four astronauts, NASA’s Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, the European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet of France, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. They encountered some hurdles during their half-year stay in space, most notably when a Russian module botched its attachment to the ISS and pushed the space station out of its place.

The crew also met some inconveniences on their way back when the capsule’s bathroom malfunctioned, leaving them with no option but to wear adult diapers for the rest of their trip to home. McArthur was not thrilled about the situation but commented:

“Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges. This is just one more that we’ll encounter and take care of in our mission, so we’re not too worried about it.”

SpaceX and NASA have been co-running missions on the ISS so that to ensure the station always has a team of astronauts getting the most from its facilities’ potential. NASA spent almost a decade lacking the necessary spacecraft to reach the ISS and have astronauts in space for long periods of time. Now with the help of SpaceX they are able to send teams out continually, with the next group preparing to head to the ISS immediately.

Blue Origin’s federal suit accuses NASA of having been “unlawful and improper” in its evaluation of proposals concerning its human landing system program, SpaceNews reported.

In April, NASA awarded a nearly $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX to collaborate with the agency to design and develop a lunar lander to carry astronauts to the moon — ensuring that SpaceX will likely play a big role in the first lunar landing with humans since 1972.

In July, Blue Origin argued in an open letter that NASA gave SpaceX an unfair advantage during the proposal process. Bezos’ company also said by choosing only one company to receive a contract, the space agency made it possible for one firm possibly to “have insurmountable leverage over NASA.”

Without competition, Blue Origin said:

“Short-term and long-term lunar ambitions will be delayed, will ultimately cost more, and won’t serve the national interest.”

In the letter, Blue Origin offered to sacrifice up to $2 billion in future payments should NASA amend its decision.

Blue Origin and Dynetics, another private company, filed a formal complaint with the Government Accountability Office over NASA’s decision to work solely with SpaceX.

But the GAO concluded in July that NASA did nothing wrong. NASA said in its initial announcement that the agency had the option of issuing multiple awards, a single one or none at all, dependent on funding, GAO said. NASA in the end went with only one company because it didn’t have enough funding for more than one award. The GAO also said that NASA evaluated all proposals fairly.

NASA must respond to Blue Origin’s suit by Oct. 12, according to BBC News. However, the details of the suit will likely remain a mystery; Blue Origin was granted a protective order, sealing details of the case, on Monday, according to Space.com.

Representatives for NASA told The Verge that they are “currently reviewing” the case.

In an infographic published on Blue Origin’s website and seen on Wednesday, the company called SpaceX using Starship to transport NASA astronauts to the lunar surface an “immensely complex & high risk” approach. Blue Origin is referring to a criticism that NASA officials made in evaluating Starship for the lunar lander program. Blue Origin wrote:

“There are an unprecedented number of technologies, developments, and operations that have never been done before for Starship to land on the Moon.”

Last Friday, the U.S. Government Accountability Office denied Blue Origin’s protest of NASA awarding SpaceX with a $2.9 billion contract under the Human Landing System program. In three one-page documents, Blue Origin decried NASA’s decision as “wrong for America’s leadership in space” and repeated its prior critique that the space agency “ran an inconsistent and unfair competition” — even though the congressional watchdog ruled that NASA did not. Blue Origin added:

“NASA ran a flawed acquisition and ignored the significant risks of a one provider model.”

The company wants NASA to award a second contract under the original Human Landing System acquisition structure. While NASA has said it would offer future contracts under HLS through Lunar Exploration Transportation Services awards, those contracts are expected to be $45 million or less each.

Blue Origin’s infographic focused on comparison between its crewed lunar lander concept, which looks and operates more akin to previous U.S. landers, and SpaceX’s approach to using a moon-specific version of its Starship rocket.

Beyond criticizing Starship’s complexity, Blue Origin emphasized that SpaceX’s facility in Texas has “never conducted an orbital launch.” Yet Musk’s company has launched more than 100 successful orbital launches with its Falcon 9 rockets, and Bezos’ company has yet to reach orbit at all.

SpaceX is also in the midst of final preparations for Starship’s first orbital launch attempt, having completed a high-altitude launch and landing of a Starship prototype in May.

Blue Origin made additional technical comparisons, noting that SpaceX’s plan requires more than 10 Starship launches to land once on the moon and needs to be refueled in orbit, “a process that has also never been done before.”

Lastly, Blue Origin compared the height of the astronaut exit hatches. Starship’s exit is 126 feet off the ground, and conceptually uses an elevator to bring astronauts to the surface, while the Blue Origin lander is 32 feet off the ground and requires crew drop down a long ladder.

One comparison that Blue Origin did not make was in regard to cost. NASA cited cost as a major factor in its decision to only select one winner under the Human Landing System, due to Congress granting the agency a fraction of its requested budget for the program. SpaceX bid $2.9 billion, while Blue Origin was roughly double at $5.99 billion.

CIMON-2, the latest version of the artificial intelligence-powered astronaut assistant developed has successfully demonstrated its capabilities on board the International Space Station (ISS) in initial tests. The ball-shaped, free-flying voice-controlled assistant demonstrated its functionalities while interacting with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano.

CIMON-2 was launched to the ISS on December 5, 2019, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on board the supply flight CRS-19. It is scheduled to remain there for up to three years. Nearly two months after the successful deployment of CIMON-2 in February, the project team has now completed its initial analysis.

CIMON-2 was tested on its autonomous flight capabilities, voice control of navigation and other tasks. For the first time, CIMON-2 was able to navigate by verbal commands to a specific point within the Columbus module, regardless of where it is located. This was demonstrated when, during the commissioning of the new hardware and software, Parmitano asked CIMON-2 to fly to the Biological Experiment Laboratory (Biolab) within the Columbus module.

Another task for CIMON-2 was to take photos and videos inside the European module of the ISS on command and then show them to the astronaut. With these skills, CIMON-2 will be able to support scientific experiments on the ISS in the future.

The current version of the astronaut assistant includes more sensitive microphones and a more developed sense of orientation than its predecessor (CIMON-1). The AI capabilities and stability of its complex software have also been significantly improved in CIMON-2. The autonomy of the battery-powered assistant has been increased by about 30 percent. In addition, CIMON-2 can detect emotions and language tones with Watson Tone Analyzer, enabling the AI assistant to react empathically to its conversational partners.

A further goal of the project is to explore how an intelligent assistant like CIMON can reduce stress for astronauts. As a partner and companion, CIMON could support them in their extensive work on experiments, maintenance and repairs, reducing their stress exposure. CIMON provides a possible basis for social assistance systems in space, which could reduce stress caused by isolation or group dynamic interactions during long-term missions, a benefit that could possibly be applied on Earth as well.

The team of DLR, Airbus, IBM and scientific partners LMU and the ESA User Support Centrum Biotesc are very satisfied with the performance of CIMON-2 so far. The new, improved hardware and complex software worked very well. This renewed success for the CIMON project is another pioneering achievement in the use of AI in space.

Meet The CIMON Family

The name CIMON came from the abbreviation Crew Interactive MObile companioN.

The development and construction of the interactive astronaut assistant CIMON was commissioned by the Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) with funds from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy and implemented by Airbus in Friedrichshafen and Bremen. IBM Watson technologies include Watson Visual Recognition, Watson Speech to Text, Watson Text to Speech, Watson Assistant and Watson Tone Analyzer, all running on IBM Cloud. The human aspects of the assistance system were co-developed and supervised by scientists of the Clinical Center of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU). The ESA User Support Centrum Biotesc at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland has ensured that CIMON works perfectly in the Columbus module of the ISS and cooperates with the astronauts.

In August 2016, a project team of about 50 people from DLR, Airbus, IBM, Biotesc, ESA and the LMU began working on CIMON-1. The prototype of the technology experiment was on board the ISS from July 2, 2018, to August 27, 2019, and made its 90-minute world premiere on November 15, 2018, with German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst. Following its successful mission, CIMON-1 was declared a German cultural asset and returned to Earth. CIMON-2 was completed in less than a year by a staff of about 20 members of the CIMON “family.” CIMON-1 will soon be presented to the public in museums and exhibitions to help the CIMON family grow and inspire future generations to study STEM subjects.

CIMON is a technology experiment to support astronauts and increase the efficiency of their work. CIMON is able to show and explain information such as instructions for scientific experiments and repairs. Voice-controlled access to documents and media allows the astronauts to keep both of their hands free. CIMON can also be used as a mobile camera to save time. It can perform routine tasks, such as documenting experiments, searching for objects and taking inventory. CIMON is also able to see, hear, understand and speak. Its “eyes” include a stereo camera used for orientation, a high-resolution camera for facial recognition and two lateral cameras for imaging and video documentation. Ultrasonic sensors measure distances to detect potential collisions. CIMON’s “ears” consist of eight microphones used to detect the direction of sound sources, plus an additional directional microphone for voice recognition. Its “mouth” is a speaker that can be used to speak or to play music.

CIMON is not equipped with self-training capabilities and requires active human instruction. The AI used for autonomous navigation was contributed by Airbus and is designed for movement planning and object recognition. Twelve internal rotors allow CIMON to move and revolve freely in all directions. This means it can turn toward the astronaut when addressed. It can also nod or shake its head and follow the astronaut autonomously or on command.