Zero Robotics, the international student competition, was conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on board the International Space Station (ISS) on the same day.
Aurora Flight Sciences and MIT have developed a Synchronized Position Hold Engage Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) robotic spacecraft, which was used in the competition.
Aurora, TopCoder and MIT have collaborated to develop the Zero Robotics competition. DARPA and NASA have provided funds for the competition as part of their Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education initiatives. Zero Robotics allows student teams from all over the world to vie against other teams in utilizing the SPHERES satellites. For the final competition, 12 teams from more than 130 US and European teams were selected.
The competition was broadcast on NASA TV. Over a real time video downlink, the participants watched the performance of their software in operating the SPHERES spacecraft. From the earth orbit, Don Pettit, the NASA astronaut took part in the competition. The Storming Robots, Rockledge High School and Alliance Rocket team won the competition.
SPHERES allows testing of small satellite technology under conditions of long-term microgravity. They can be utilized for testing and developing software procedures and algorithms that can be used by new satellites for docking, proximity and formation flight operations. MIT Space Systems Laboratory and Aurora Flight Sciences had together developed the SPHERES satellite test bed. Aurora provides hardware and software for SPHERES.
Source: http://www.aurora.aero/