The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) announced that Team Inflection Point of the Batangas State University (BatStateU) has won second place in the 5th Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (Kibo-RPC).
The Kibo-RPC is an international challenge organized by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
During the challenge, each team created code to program NASA’s free-flying robot, Astrobee, to designated locations within the Japanese “Kibo” module aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Out of the 611 teams from Kibo-ABC member countries that submitted their entries, 13 teams made it to the final round of the 5th Kibo-RPC. Inflection Point is the first-ever Philippine team to join and win at the Kibo-RPC.
The final round was held on Nov. 9 at the ISS, where the 13 programs were individually run on Astrobee by NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps. The programs were assessed and rated based on how effectively they met the challenge objectives.
Inflection Point’s program scored 250.88 out of 270 points, earning them second place. Their score only has a three-point difference from the first-place winner, team Astronut of Thailand, with 253.09 points.
Additionally, Inflection Point and Astronut were the only teams whose programs succeeded in completing all the objectives set out by JAXA.
This is the first time that the Philippines has participated in Kibo-RPC. As the central government agency addressing all national issues and activities related to SSTAs and as a member of the Kibo-ABC program, PhilSA spearheaded the local call for the 5th Kibo-RPC applications.
Twenty nine team applications were received nationwide from April 2 to May 27, and seven teams successfully submitted their program entries.
