Lockheed Martin, Amazon, Cisco Partner Team Up on Human-Machine Interface for Orion

Lockheed Martin announced that it has teamed up with Amazon and Cisco to add human-machine interface technologies to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Orion spacecraft, which was built to take humans farther out in space than they have ever gone before.

The collaboration has resulted in a new technology, christened, “Callisto,” which will be integrated into the Orion spacecraft for the space agency’s Artemis I uncrewed mission around the Moon and back to Earth, Lockheed Martin said Wednesday.

Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager of Commercial Civil Space for Lockheed Martin, said Callisto will demonstrate a first-of-its-kind technology that could be used in the future to enable astronauts to be more self-reliant as they explore deep space. She added that Callisto proves that partnerships among companies can benefit future human deep space missions.

Callisto uses Amazon Alexa and Webex by Cisco to test and demonstrate commercial technology for deep space voice, video and whiteboarding communications. For its part, Lockheed Martin designed and built the Orion spacecraft for NASA and is leading the development and integration of the payload.

The payload features a custom hardware and software integration developed by engineers from the three companies and includes innovative technology that allows Alexa’s virtual assistant technology to work without an internet connection, and Webex to run on a tablet using NASA’s Deep Space Network., Lockheed Martin explained.

Aaron Rubenson, vice president of Amazon Alexa, said the computer in the science fiction hit “Star Trek” was part of developers’ original inspiration for Alexa, saying it is “exciting and humbling” to see that vision for ambient intelligence come to life onboard Orion.