Abstract: Free-flying space robots can be used when humans are present to off-load routine work, to increase astronaut productivity, and to handle contingencies. The International Space Station (ISS), for example, is a continuously manned orbital laboratory the size of a large house, which contains many thousands of inventory items and hundreds of diverse payloads and experiments – all of which have to be managed by 6 person crew. To help with this, NASA is developing and testing robotic free-flyers on…