GITAI, JAXA Partner to Develop Robot Model That Will Traverse the Moon’s Surface

A robot called the R1 was designed and developed by GITAI in collaboration with the Japanese space agency JAXA.

In a CNN report, it was specified that the Japanese firm had constructed a four-legged, rolling robot, vaguely looking like a centaur, that boasts a pair of arms with claw-like hands, an "arachnid-esque abdomen," and a pair of bulging cameras for eyes, and is designed to traverse the moon's surface.

A recently conducted test run at a JAXA facility that emulates lunar dirt exhibits the robot roving around the bumpy terrain on its four wheels, unpacking a set of parts with clamp-like hands and clinching together the base construction for a solar panel.

The said robot is one of the numerous robots GITAI has developed for different purposes. The company's goal is to take its technology to the actual moon's surface sometime in the middle of the 2020s.

Robot Deployment in Space

As indicated on the GITAI website, the robot ran a few additional exercises that are meant to test "how well it can traverse bumpy terrain, hills, and possibly collect a sample of lunar regolith.

The footage, as seen below, which is sped up to 15 times its average speed, giving the video the quality of a "stop-motion" horror film, reveals the robot using its pincher hands to pick up a tiny scoop and a clear jar and jerkily harvest a small amount of mock moon dust.

Deploying robots to space is nothing new. In fact, the International Space Station has hosted an astronaut companion robot with robotic arms, including one developed by Japan.

More so, NASA has put several rovers on the Red Planet as well, although none has had the same vaguely anthropomorphic qualities as GITAI's R1.

A Similar Approach to NASA's

This robot is part of an ongoing race to create new means of completing tasks like manufacturing or mining in space, as Russia, China, the United States, and its partners are racing to develop a permanent lunar outpost.

Such an outpost, the JAXA press release specified, could host all types of business activities and scientific missions. Meanwhile, a host of United States-based companies are working to develop various robots, lunar landers, and rovers, as well, for future missions.

JAXA, a close partner to the US in all things space exploration, has taken a similar approach to NASA when it comes to giving out contracts to firms, hoping competition, as well as privatization, will stimulate the development of cutting-edge space technology.

According to the CEO of GITAI, Sho Nakanose, their goal is to achieve success in terms of the commercialization of space robotics and thereby decrease the cost of space labor to one-hundredth.

He added that they believe the company's success will contribute to true space commercialization. GITAI has many other robot models, each designed and developed to operate in space.

A report about this GITAI robot is shown on GITAI's YouTube video below:

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