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Spherical robot designed and developed by Airbus, IBM and DLR to be launched into space later today

Later today – at 5.42am EST to be exact – a spherical robot designed and developed by IBM, Airbus and DLR will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket on a journey to the International Space Station.

The robot, called “Cimon”, is said to contain “next-level intelligence” and will take part in many scientific experiments on the ISS mission.

Cimon – which is pronounced “Simon” and stands for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion – is about the size of a basketball and will accompany German astronaut Alexander Gerst.  [Read more…] about Spherical robot designed and developed by Airbus, IBM and DLR to be launched into space later today

NanoRacks to deploy QB50 Satellites from International Space Station

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NanoRacks has been selected as a launch integration and deployment partner for the QB50 CubeSat Constellation Mission. The QB50 Mission is a European Union project, supported and funded by the European Commission, to demonstrate the research benefits of deploying a low-cost constellation of small satellites.

The QB50 Mission consists of dozens of universities located around the world, from Europe to Asia, from North America to Africa. Coordinated by the von Karmen Institute, QB50 is the second-ever cubesat constellation. The CubeSats will orbit in the lower thermosphere (200-380 kilometers) collecting scientific data, in what is considered by experts a relatively unexplored part of Earth’s atmosphere.

NanoRacks will be deploying a majority of the QB50 satellites from the International Space Station (ISS) utilizing the Company’s NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer. The selection of the ISS as the deployment platform for this program leverages the unique capabilities of the ISS to serve as a test-bed for numerous in-space technologies and research development. [Read more…] about NanoRacks to deploy QB50 Satellites from International Space Station