Here’s a close-up look at JAXA’s Int-Ball2, a free-flying, autonomous camera robot made to help astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), especially in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), called “Kibo.” It’s basically an improved version of the original Int-Ball, with better features to lighten astronauts’ workloads and assist ground teams.
Int-Ball2 is tasked with snapping high-quality photos and videos inside the ISS, taking over jobs that normally use about 10% of astronauts’ time. This lets the crew focus on experiments and key tasks. It also serves as a way to test robotic technology in space. Run by JAXA’s ground team, Int-Ball2 records live images that both ground controllers and ISS crew can check.
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It’s a small sphere, 7.9 inches wide, weighing around 7.3 lbs, and uses eight enclosed propellers to move smoothly in the ISS’s zero-gravity environment. This fixes the drifting problems of the first Int-Ball caused by air currents, allowing it to move and turn precisely in any direction.
Int-Ball2 has a main 4K camera for sharp video and a stereo camera for navigation. The stereo camera, paired with Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (VSLAM), helps Int-Ball2 map its surroundings and figure out where it is. Best of all, it can dock itself at a charging station to recharge and store itself, so astronauts don’t need to step in.
Its “eyes” are two glowing blue light rings around the main camera, showing when it’s recording (blue for active, red for errors). These give it a cute, almost Pixar-like look, often compared to BB-8 from Star Wars.
