NASA is reportedly working on a project to develop a humanoid robot that will help humans travel to new celestial bodies and may even help with laundry at home.
Apptronik, a US-based robotics company, is collaborating with NASA to develop "Apollo", a 5-foot 8-inch, 160-pound (about 72 kg) general-purpose humanoid robot designed to assist with tasks in space, the commercial sector, and, most interestingly, the home, reports ZDNET.
"You know, I'm ready for it. I'm tired of doing my dishes and laundry," Jeff Cardenas, CEO of Apptronik was quoted as saying. Apollo will be equipped to perform a variety of tasks in various environments, with the mission of carrying burdens that humans do not need or want to carry, said the report.
"The initial things that these robots are going to do are very sort of simple things, like move objects," said Cardenas. "Things that we're exerting a lot of energy on, and I think what this will do is free humans up to do things that are much more worthy of our time, and our talent," he added.
Apollo will make its first debut at South by Southwest in March 2023, according to the report. South by Southwest is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organised jointly that take place in mid-March in the US.
Apptronik will then spend the rest of the year working closely with select customers to deploy the robot and observe use cases, however, the wider rollout will not begin until 2024.
NASA and Apptronik first collaborated in 2013, when they built NASA's Valkyrie Robot for the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). Valkyrie was a multi-purpose humanoid robot that could have walked straight out of a sci-fi movie, the report added.