JOY, the flying robot destined for the ISS, spent a cumulative two minutes in weightlessness — in Canada because there was no American flight

Icarus Robotics has chained 66 dishes in four flights to test the handling, position estimation and flight control of its space logistics robot.

Icarus Robotics has flown JOY, the open-source robot it is planning for the International Space Station, in microgravity. The campaign took place from 9 to 11 September: four parabolic flights, 66 parabolas, or about two cumulative minutes of weightlessness. Three systems were isolated for the occasion — manipulation, with arm controllers and trajectories; state estimation, i.e. the robot's ability to regain its position after a disturbance; and flight control, for movement and stabilization.

JOY is designed to operate inside a pressurized spacecraft much like a submarine in water: it moves with fans and has two seven-degree-of-freedom arms equipped with adaptive grippers, to handle cargo and logistics. The on-board computing is based on an Nvidia Jetson Thor T5000 processor, which is significantly more powerful than what is usually found in space robotic platforms.

The schedule calls for a handover to NASA on January 25, 2027 and a launch to the ISS in May 2027, under the name Joyride-1, as part of a mission management agreement with Voyager Technologies. The first operations will be remotely operated, with autonomy to be built afterwards. A detail revealing the state of the industry: with the American parabolic flight operator suspended, the company had to conduct its tests in Canada.