Adorable, Miniature Drone Joins the International Space Station Crew

Say hello to JAXA's Int-Ball. (Credit: JAXA) An adorable documentarian has joined the International Space Station crew. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently shipped its spherical camera drone to the ISS—thank you, SpaceX—to serve as another set of eyes and ears for ground control. It’s called the JEM Internal Ball Camera, but everyone’s referring to the little feller as “Int-Ball.” Last week, JAXA released the first images of Int-Ball on the job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PntNBeJuRFQ The ISS crew spends a lot of time in front of cameras; in fact, JAXA estimates that photography consumes 10 percent of ISS crew members' working hours. Int-Ball’s mission is to cut photo-taking and filming time down to zero, leaving the crew to focus on other important tasks. To do this, Int-Ball can autonomously float to and fro in zero gravity, and ground-based crew members at the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center can remotely take control of ...