OREANDA-NEWS. Dentsu Inc. announced that the robot astronaut Kirobo will be aboard the Kounotori 4 cargo spacecraft that is scheduled to be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center to the International Space Station (ISS) on August 4 this year.

Kirobo is one of the two humanoid communication robots developed under the KIBO ROBOT PROJECT, a joint research project carried out in collaboration with the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, ROBO GARAGE Co., Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corporation. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) also provided extensive cooperation.

RCAST and ROBO GARAGE worked on the development of the robot hardware and motion generation, Toyota was responsible for the voice recognition function used for the robot’s intelligence, and Dentsu handled the creation of the conversation content as well as the management of the entire project.

The H-IIB Launch Vehicle No. 4 carrying the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV4, also called Kounotori 4) will be launched around 4:48 a.m. on August 4, 2013 (Sunday, Japan Standard Time) from the Tanegashima Space Center. Kirobo will be on board Kounotori 4, and after disembarking at the ISS the robot astronaut will wait for the arrival of Commander Koichi Wakata in November or December. They will then take part in the world’s first conversation experiment held between a person and a robot in outer space. This experiment will take place in the Kibo Japanese experiment module, which is part of the ISS.