Spherical Robots Being Tested on the ISS

A group of undergraduate students at MIT have constructed a number of spherical droids to operate in the International Space Station. The program, dubbed SPHERES, is run by David Miller and is sponsored by DARPA. The spheres are powered by compressed CO2 thrusters and are about the size of a volleyball.

The first sphere arrived on the ISS in April with another one to follow later this year. They are being used to test formation algorithms and group movement. Future applications could include having arrays of robots forming clusters of satellites or having multiple small robots assemble items in space for longer missions to the moon or Mars.