Iván Hernández Dalas: Icarus Robotics to test its free-flying robot in the ISS with Voyager
Icarus Robotics’ Joy robot will be taking on its first mission, Joyride, in 2027. | Source: Icarus Robotics
Icarus Robotics today said it plans to test its free-flying Joy robot on the International Space Station, or ISS, in 2027. The startup has entered into a mission management contract with Voyager Technologies Inc.
Voyager operates the only commercial airlock onboard the ISS. Under the agreement, the company will oversee payload integration, safety certification, launch coordination, on-orbit operations planning, and real-time mission execution support. Icarus Robotics said this will allow it to focus on solving the challenges of operating a robot in zero gravity around people.
“Voyager allows us to think about the fundamentals of the robotics problems that we’re solving,” Ethan Barajas, co-founder and CEO of Icarus, told The Robot Report. San Diego-based Voyager is the type of company that brings things from ideal to real systems in space, he said.
Joy will have a real impact on the ISS, asserted Scott Rodriguez, the vice president of government programs at Voyager. He said he believes the technology could be useful in the company‘s future commercial space endeavors.
“Our job should be pretty easy here. We just are the implementation partner. We enable what they want to do,” Rodriguez told The Robot Report. “They focus on their research and their science, their technology, and we just get them up there and help them execute it.”
Last year, the New York-based startup raised $6.1 million in seed funding. Since then, Icarus has worked to turn its system into a scalable, production-ready robot.
Icarus Robotics designs Joy to help astronauts
Joy uses fans to propel it through the pressurized space inside the ISS. It has two robotic arms that Icarus Robotics’ team can control from the ground.
Icarus said it plans to start with teleoperating the robot, which will allow the company to gather crucial data to build an autonomy system. It also allows the team to get the robot into space as quickly as possible.
“The mission is to actually get to the environment, test our hardware in that environment, and then collect that just super valuable expert human demonstration data,” said Jaime Palmer, co-founder and chief technology officer of Icarus. “Because what that unlocks for us is so huge. The idea [is] having a fully trained, autonomous, learned robot brain [that] can start from getting that real data in that real environment.”
Palmer said Icarus has been working with experts in the field on creating better teleoperation systems. This included adding people with expertise in teleoperation to the team and working with different sectors like the medical industry.
“Surgical robots are, in my opinion, one of the frontiers of robot teleoperations,” Palmer said. “So, we’re really trying to think in many different ways about how this is possible.”
A rendering of a production-ready version of Joy. | Source: Icarus Robotics
What will Joy do on the ISS?
Icarus Robotics is targeting many different tasks on the ISS. There are many repetitive tasks that astronauts have to do each day, taking them away from more important research projects.
“The first is on the cargo and logistics side of things, moving cargo bags from A to B — that’s extremely time-consuming,” Barajas said. “You’re dealing with the shifting masses in these cargo bags, where you might not know what’s inside of them. That’s a really tough controls problem. After this comes the manipulation to actually open these bags and do the logistics of what the cargo is inside of it and where it goes.”
Even during scientific experiments, there are lots of opportunities for robots to take work off an astronaut’s hands.
“Let’s say if you’re doing a tower experiment, about three-quarters of that could be just the setup or locating tools and unpacking things, and that’s the sort of thing that Joy is looking to change,” Rodriguez said. “We could free astronauts up to do scientific research and complex troubleshooting by doing the repetitive tasks and preparing workspaces, staging experiments.”
How did Voyager help in the development process?
Barajas said Voyager helped Icarus with mission management, designing the interface between the ISS National Lab, and working with components of the ISS that require special access from other organizations, like the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Voyager also helped with specific design considerations.
“You learn about things like solder grows whiskers when you send it to space, if it’s tinned,” Barajas said. “So, just these little, tiny things that they get through years of experience of deploying thousands of payloads to space.”
Voyager also helped to verify that Icarus’ robot will be safe enough to operate in the ISS. “When you go to the International Space Station, you go through the NASA safety and certification process, and they tend to deal in possibility, not probability,” Rodriguez said.
NASA is interested in exploring any possible way something can go wrong, which means any experimental technology, like a robot, goes through a rigorous safety certification.
“NASA is incredibly helpful and will give you resources along the way, but their primary goal is keeping their station up and their astronauts alive,” Rodriguez said. This is where Voyager can help take some of the burden off of Icarus.
“We learned a lot over the years, and a lot of it is just trial by fire and making mistakes,” Rodriguez said. “So, we’re happy to hand anything we learned over and try to help them, and save them from those mistakes along the way, although I don’t think they’re going to need much help.”
What’s next for Icarus?
From left to right, Ethan Barajas, the CEO, and Jamie Palmer, the CTO, the co-founders of Icarus. | Source: Icarus Robotics
Voyager and Icarus plan to bring Joy to the ISS in early 2027. From there, the amount of time the robot will spend in space, and when it starts operating, will be up in the air. Getting the robot operational will depend on astronaut availability.
In addition, flights back from the ISS are rarer than flights to the ISS, so Joy’s return will depend on Voyager’s schedule.
Icarus still has some preparation to do before it sends Joy to the ISS.
“One of the most exciting things is preparing for the parabolic test flight, which will give us that opportunity to go that final step before you really make it to space,” Palmer said. “I think this is going to give us sort of a leg up, experiencing the groundwork of actually running a mission like that before getting to this really, really important ISS test.
Looking further into the future, Icarus is interested in creating more robot form factors to operate inside and outside of space stations.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for us to go from this free flyer that lives inside of the station and works alongside astronaut crews, into some really, really exciting things outside of that, where we’ll have multiple robot form factors,” Palmer said. “I think the real secret sauce is that they all can share that same underlying robot brain built entirely for microgravity.”
Outside space stations, a robot could do orbit maintenance, satellite servicing, assembly, and refueling. Eventually, they could be used for infrastructure-building tasks on the moon or Mars.
“You just can’t build all that with human labor,” Rodriguez said. “It’s going to have to be robotically driven to a degree, and this is a good step in that direction.”
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