Russias Working on a Lunar Rover With a Humanoid Torso – Futurism

Fedors Future

In August, Russia sent its gun-toting humanoid robot Fedor to the International Space Station, where it spent a couple weeks learning how to be a cosmonaut.

Now that Fedor is back on Earth, the nations space agency has revealed that the bots next destination is the Moon but first, theyre going to chop off its legs and attach it to a lunar rover, according to a new story by state-run news service RIA Novosti.

A source in Roscosmos reportedly told RIA Novosti that the agency plans to send a lunar rover with a wheeled body pretty standard amongst rovers and the torso, head, and arms of a Fedor robot to the Moon in three to four years.

Fedor has already proven it can use tools, drive a car, and even shoot a gun, so by adding the humanoids top half to a rover, Russia will be creating a bot with incredible dexterity.

The United Kingdom is also rethinking lunar rover design, but its strategy is the opposite of Russias it plans to send a cube-shaped rover withspider-like legs instead of wheels to the Moon in 2021, the idea being that the bots legs might allow it to explore terrain a wheeled bot couldnt reach.

It seems both agencies are working to create rovers that are a little more inspired by human biology making them the perfect fill-in until we can put real people back on the Moon.

READ MORE: Russia wants to remove space robots legs, give it wheels, send it to the Moon [Ars Technica]

More on Fedor: Watch Russias Gun-Toting Robot Use a Power Drill on the ISS

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Russias Working on a Lunar Rover With a Humanoid Torso - Futurism