Is it possible to have humanoid robots in space soon? The answer is most definitely yes as confirmed by industry experts at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. The launch of humanoid robots joining astronauts in space is part of NASA’s plan for their upcoming missions to Mars and the moon.

At last year’s SXSW event, Shaun Azimi, lead of NASA’s dexterous robotics program, and Jeff Cardenas, CEO of Apptronik, spoke about their collaborative plans to develop humanoid robots to assist astronauts with their missions in space. Hence, we were introduced to Apollo, Apptronik’s latest humanoid robot. Although Apollo was originally a general-use humanoid robot, the pair later on announced that it would be adapting to space missions soon.

While launching humanoid robots in space will be “game changers” for missions, Azimi acknowledges that to get there, innovations from across the country would be needed. Perhaps this is a nudge to the robotic trends in 2024, which are the innovation and invention of more humanoid robots and the call for robotic tech industries to start sharing their developments and models with one another.

As NASA currently prepares for its Artemis mission and to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon by 2028, we can expect that humanoid robots will soon be up there joining them to make working and living conditions easier.

Although there are already robots exploring space, Apollo and this announcement from NASA certainly solidify their permanent presence outside of this world. Having humanoid robots in space would also mean new discoveries and hopefully limitless possibilities in uncovering the universe and cosmos, which may be too dangerous for some astronauts to do due to limitations and danger.

A tiny surgical robot named spaceMIRA successfully performs and completes the first simulated surgery at the space station. At the time of the simulated operation, SpaceMIRA was remotely operated by surgeons from around 250 miles (400 kilometers) below in Lincoln, Nebraska.

spaceMIRA, which stands for Miniaturized In Vivo Robotics Assistant, is a remotely operated robot created by Virtual Incision. The robot weighs 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms), has a compact microwave-size design, and has two arms that allow it to perform surgery. Mimicking a surgeon, spaceMIRA’s arms have assignments. The left arm is used to grasp and the right arm is used for cutting (or slicing).

Shedding more light on spaceMIRA’s design is Shane Farritor, cofounder and chief technology offer at Virtual Incision, “It gives smaller hands and eyes to the surgeon (on Earth) and allows them to perform a lot of procedures minimally invasive,”, he says.

The telesurgery happened on a Saturday after spaceMIRA arrived at the space station on February 1. Said demonstration sought the help of a remote surgeon to control spaceMIRA’s arms to provide tension to the simulated tissue on one hand and the other hand to dissect the elastic tissue with scissors. Seeing as how the operation performed is still a demonstration, the team made use of rubber bands as makeshift tissues. A total of six remote surgeons performed tests with spaceMIRA, and each of them had a common surgical task. Farritor reports that all six operations were successful.

However, one important finding they noted was the time delay experienced between receiving and sending commands to spaceMIRA. A colorectal surgeon, Dr. Michael Jobst, reports that the time delay experienced was around 0.85 of a second. While that might not seem a lot, he puts it into perspective by saying, “In a live patient, if there is bleeding, it’s my job to stop that bleeding immediately. But to have an 800 to 850-millisecond lag between seeing the blood loss and then doing something about it, I mean, effectively, that’s like…saying, OK, one Mississippi, two, and then I get to go ahead and fix the problem,”.

Nonetheless, spaceMIRA and this successful telesurgery demonstration are valuable findings in expanding surgical options on Earth, in distant places, and beyond. “As Farrior said, “There are a lot of places in the US … that don’t have access to specialists, and if you could perform telesurgery like this, where you could have an expert dial in from a larger city into a rural area and assist with some surgical care, I think that’s got huge advantages.”. With that, spaceMIRA can potentially expand its services in rural areas or military battlefields, aside from extending its services in space.

spaceMIRA is certainly a giant leap in the industry of surgical robots and healthcare. One can’t help but wonder what the future might bring for robotic surgery, robots in space, and more.

That’s one step for man and now also robots. The global leader in space exploration, NASA, and other space institutions are deploying more robots to help astronauts with their tasks and missions that are truly out of this world!

After the success of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover and the Mars 2022 Curiosity Rover space missions, it only seems likely to continue sending robots to space to discover more wonders about the cosmos. Let’s meet the seven new robots who will be exploring the great beyond.

LEMUR

Having been in development since 2011, LEMUR is a FreeClimber robot that is designed to crawl, walk, and scale cliffs. Using the tiny fishhooks embedded in each of its 16 fingers, LEMUR can climb the extreme terrains of Mars, the Moon, and other small bodies.

Similar to its animal analog, the LEMUR has legs that will allow it to move. This will allow LEMUR to explore Mars further than any astronaut can due to the rough terrain.

RoboSimian

Fully developed and completed in 2015, the RoboSimian is an ape-like robot that is designed to traverse extreme terrains and perform dexterous tasks. Although it’s definitely a major upscaled version of a robot vacuum, the RoboSimian also makes use of a LiDAR device to help navigate and sketch out its environment in 3D.

While the RoboSimian was originally built for disaster relief use, it has since been modified by NASA to roam Enceladus, Saturn’s moon.

RASSOR

Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot or also known as RASSOR is a space mining robot. RASSOR is designed to dig regolith and resources such as water, ice, and even fuel on the terrains of the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. Aside from mining, RASSOR can also traverse steep slopes, climb rocks, and collect samples.

PRO-ACT

The PRO-ACT is a 3-robot working collaboration for an in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) plant. The first robot is named VELES, which is a 6-wheeled mobile manipulator. The second robot is called The Mantis, a 6-legged walking robotic system.

The third robot is The Mobile Gantry, which is a 4-wheeled gantry with a 3D printer that can help make building elements for human habitats and for lifting heavy loads. Together, the three robots will be assembling this plant as part of an ESA mission on the moon to help enable human settlement.

Robonaut 2

Sophia is perhaps the most popular humanoid robot to date. However, the title may soon go to Robonaut 2, the first dexterous humanoid robot to ever go to outer space. NASA specifically designed Robonaut 2 to help astronauts with certain menial but important tasks such as cleaning handrails, picking objects, and flipping switches.

Built to work side-by-side with astronauts, Robonaut 2 will also help in performing certain tasks that may be too risky for humans to accomplish due to the environment.

Dragonfly

Built for the specific mission to explore Saturn’s moon, Titan, Dragonfly is set for deployment in 2027. The dual-quadcopter has an eight-bladed drone-like craft that will help in its search and exploration of sources of life on the icy Titan moon.

Thanks to its design, Dragonfly can cover tens of miles farther than other planetary rovers to date. Thus, Dragonfly will be the first vehicle and robot to fly the entire place.

Valkyrie

Valkyrie is the modified version of the Robonaut 2 humanoid robot. Giving justice to its name that was taken from Norse mythology, Valkyrie is expected to operate in the most hostile of space environments.

It also has a LiDAR sensor to help in its navigation so it can continuously scan the surroundings for any obstacles. NASA particularly plans on sending Valkyrie to the Moon and Mars as a step towards humans colonizing space.

Final Word

Deploying robots to outer space is just one of the many incredible ways humans are positively using science and technology for societal advancement. Whether robots are working in restaurants, hospitals, or outer space, one thing is for sure. Humans and robots coexisting is one giant leap for mankind that can get us excited about what the future will hold.