Space is a familiar place to Michael Foale. As an astronaut, he travelled there six times between 1992 and 2004, and in 2003 he served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS) for six months. He free-floated through space four times during his travels: “My first spacewalk is still fresh on my mind,” he recounts. “When I exited the Space Shuttle, I could see Earth and the Milky Way. It was nothing less than breathtaking.” It was a dream come true for him, a dream he had harbored since he was just six years old. “I always wanted to go into space — above all for the fantastic view,” Foale says.

The SoundSee technology for the ISS was developed by Bosch and Astrobotic, a U.S.-based company specializing in space robotics. Michael Foale has been supporting the team with tests on Earth for about a year. The SoundSee system is mounted on Astrobee, a cube-shaped mini robot developed by NASA that floats autonomously through the ISS. From this vantage point, the SoundSee microphones are expected to continuously record the operating noises of the machinery and equipment on board the space station.

In autumn 2019, the sensor system was sent to the ISS aboard a rocket. Foale believes that SoundSee will serve as a vital aid in the astronauts’ everyday work: “On the ISS, your workday is chock-full of tasks. The astronauts are undertaking studies on the effects of zero gravity on cells, plants, and the human organism. This knowledge is very important for the planning and implementation of future missions to space. An athletic program is also part of everyday life on the ISS. The muscles of astronauts atrophy faster in space than on Earth due to the lack of activity that goes hand-in-hand with zero gravity. This means the muscles must be exercised to prevent health problems when the astronauts return to Earth. In addition, the astronauts are also constantly busy with checking the on-board equipment for malfunctions. This is where SoundSee could come in.” This system could save the astronauts time, which they could use for more important things. If the floating troubleshooter works as expected, it could also warn the crew before malfunctions occur. This would save even more time: “It is easier to maintain a machine than to repair it after a malfunction,” Foale says.

If the test on board the ISS is successful, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) would be the next conceivable step. AI could analyze the audio data and automate the troubleshooting process. Maybe SoundSee will one day be a standard feature on spacecraft, an indispensable tool to support the human exploration of space. But regardless of what the future may hold for space travel, SoundSee developers are confident that the tests on board the ISS will yield findings that may prove useful on Earth, too. SoundSee could be used to monitor heating, ventilation, and A/C systems or vehicle engines, for example. In the meantime, space is the perfect test lab for the developers to fine-tune the sensor system — not because of the stunning views, but because the vacuum of space isn’t nearly as noisy as the surface of the Earth.

Colin Michael Foale is British by birth. He studied physics at Cambridge University, where he received his doctorate in astrophysics in 1982. After graduating with a bachelor's degree, he moved to the U.S. to work for aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas before joining NASA in 1983 where he served at the Johnson Space Center's flight control center in Houston, Texas. Nine years later he flew to space for the first time.

As an astronaut, Foale took part in six space flights and spent a total of 374 days in space. In 2013 he left NASA to apply machine learning methods to aerospace vehicles with his company, Foale Aerospace, Inc.