Technology: Selfies in space

Editorial: Understanding Selfies

Opinion: Science in the age of selfies.

A time traveler from 1915 arriving in 1965 would have been astonished by the scientific theories and engineering technologies invented during that half century. One can only speculate, but it seems likely that few of the major advances that emerged during those 50 years were even remotely foreseeable in 1915: Life scientists discovered DNA, the genetic code, transcription, and examples of its r...

Space and satellite technology

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Bösch Over the last decades Space and satellite technology has increasingly become part of our daily lives, be it regular weather forecasts based on satellite images, the multitude of TV channels distributed via satellites or the navigational GPS support we find in almost every car—not to mention the many other services and science missions that are based on modern sate...

Technology for Robotic Surface Inspection in Space

This paper presents on-going research in robotic inspection of space platforms. Three main areas of investigation are discussed: machine-vision inspection techniques, an integrated sensor end-e ector, and an orbital environment laboratory simulation. Machine-vision inspection utilizes automatic comparison of new and reference images to detect on-orbit induced damage such as micro-meteorite impa...

Recent Trends in Space Mapping Technology

We review recent trends in the art of Space Mapping (SM) technology for modeling and design of engineering devices and systems. The SM approach aims at achieving a satisfactory solution with a handful of computationally expensive so-called “fine” model evaluations. SM procedures iteratively update and optimize surrogates based on fast physically-based “coarse” models. Parameter extraction is an...