Astrobee Robot Software
- Software
- Drones and boats
- Framework
Flight software, simulator and tools for NASA's Astrobee free-flying robots, which operate inside the International Space Station. Built mainly in C++ on ROS.
Made by NASA, United States (checked on github.com/nasa (opens in a new tab)).
Source on GitHub: github.com/nasa/astrobee (opens in a new tab). Facts read at commit bf43a42 (opens in a new tab).
Licenses
- Code
- Apache-2.0 (opens in a new tab)
Read by Robotheca from LICENSE (opens in a new tab) (Apache-2.0) at commit bf43a42 (opens in a new tab), on 16 Oct 2026.
- Commercial use
- Unknown
The code is Apache-2.0, but the repository's own licenses.csv lists a non-commercial part (CC BY-NC-SA, and a non-commercial SURF implementation): unknown until each part is checked.
What it does
- Runs onboard the Astrobee robots' three internal single board computers and handles localization, navigation, docking and perching.
- Manages sensors and actuators and supports human-robot interaction through screen displays, light signaling and sound.
- Accepts plans, operator teleoperation commands, or commands from guest science code, via a high-level Command API.
- A ROS and Gazebo based simulator lets the flight software be evaluated without robot hardware.
- Supporting tools include one that builds maps from ISS imagery for Astrobee localization.
- Uses ROS as message-passing middleware; the separate ground data system communicates over DDS.
Written by Robotheca from the project's README (opens in a new tab) at commit bf43a42.
Getting started
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- How to start
- The project's website (opens in a new tab)
Maintenance
- Status
- Maintained: a commit in the last 12 months
- Newest commit
- 2 Dec 2025 on master
- Latest release
- Release 0.19.1 (20 Jul 2024)
Checked on GitHub on 16 Oct 2026.
Links
Robots on Robotheca that use it
No robot on Robotheca is linked to it yet. Links come from a robot's robot.yaml, from its dependency files read as text, or from Robotheca's editors.
Robotheca lists software as a reference: nothing is hosted or run here, and every fact links to where it was read.