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posted by martyb on Friday December 08 2017, @12:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the mounted-adjacent-to-the-"Easy"-button dept.

An engineering company is developing an automated system to help get spacewalking astronauts to safety. Spacewalking astronauts at the International Space Station currently wear a Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER) jet backpack that must be manually controlled:

Getting stranded during a spacewalk is a terrifying scenario for any astronaut to imagine — but what if space station crew members could simply press a button during such an event and be immediately transported back to safety?

That's the idea behind new technology in development dubbed the "Take Me Home" button. It's a complex system of hardware and software that could be incorporated into a space suit and can automatically guide an astronaut home during an emergency in space. The concept is currently being developed with partial NASA funding at Draper, an engineering company with a long history of creating technologies for crewed spaceflight.


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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 08 2017, @01:08PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday December 08 2017, @01:08PM (#607169) Homepage
    If it was for RosCosmos not NASA, they's just repurpose a vaccuum-cleaner's mains cable retraction mechanism. It works, doesn't it? Apart from that slight whiplash at the end.
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