NEWS BOARD
AUGUST
ISSUE NO 11
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This Cute Camera Drone Now Lives on the International Space Station
There s a new camera drone floating around on the International Space Station and it s adorable
Called the Int Ball the drone shoots photos of the crew and their activities freeing up the
astronauts to do other work Int Ball was delivered to the ISS by SpaceX s Falcon 9 rocket and a
reusable Dragon cargo capsule back on June 4th 2017 and Int Ball currently spends its time inside
the Japanese Kibo science experiment module
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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA writes that Int Ball can move around and shoot
both still photos and videos onboard the ISS while being controlled by a remote photographer
based on Earth The 15cm diameter 6in camera drone contains a 3 axis control unit that uses 12
fans to move about The camera is located between the glowing eyes of the cute little bot
allowing astronauts to see where it s being directed at any given time
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Astronauts onboard the ISS reportedly spend 10 of their time shooting photos and Int Ball s goal
is to free up some of that time for other more important tasks Images captured by Int Ball are
beamed to people on the ground in real time allowing scientists to efficiently collaborate with ISS
astronauts on projects
JAXA says it s working on developing Int Ball s performance and automation to the point where it
can take over all of the astronauts photographic responsibilities
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