Two pairs of sticky feet, a round body and some inspiration by geckos, the amazing lizards that can climb easily on walls, were enough for NASA to create a next generation climbing robot to help the engineers carry repair work on the ISS (International Space Station).
After that and NASA’s new rocket design to get us to Mars, you’ll believe that everything is possible.
GECKOS?
Geckos, according to the Wikipedia are lizards living in warm climates and their size ranges from 0.62 to 23.6 inches. Their toes have an adaptation that allow them to adhere to most surfaces using their spatula-shaped setae on their footpads.
That was the concept that Aaron Parness and his colleagues from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California used and created a material with synthetic hairs, much thinner than a human hair. These hairs bend everytime a force is applied and that’s how the designed material sticks to a desired surface, supporting more than 150 Newtons of force.
“This is how the gecko does it,” Parness says, and you can watch a mini demonstration by the team here.
WHAT DID THE TESTS SAY?
In a zero gravity test, the robots were able to hang on and handle a 22 pounds cube and a 220 pounds person. As with geckos’ toes, the prototype feet that NASA designed did not lose their effectiveness even after 30,000 stick-and-unstick repetitions and the hope is the new material could soon be used on the International Space Station.
The amazing material that was used to develop these revolutionary robotic parts has been tested under extreme conditions and its effectiveness is not influenced by radiation or temperature. Its strength could come handy for ISS employees and NASA has already created different sizes of patches that can be used to hang objects on walls in zero-gravity.
NASA HAS BEEN BUSY LATELY
With the vision to use robot technology beyond the ISS borders (or even in the outer space) Parness and his team of researchers created hand-operated “astronaut anchors,” and they are also testing a lemur climbing robot, which is equipped with gecko super-feet.
Ah, technology.
