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Japanese robot astronaut, Kirobo, speaks first words in space

Kirobo, the newest 'crew member' on board the International Space Station was silent for his first weeks there, but on August 21st, the small robot finally spoke up, becoming the very first talking robot astronaut.

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Kirobo is programmed for voice recognition, face recognition and even emotion recognition, and he has special 'natural language processing' software, all in an effort to help him understand human speech. He's designed to be a robot companion for astronauts on long missions, to provide social interaction and prevent them from getting lonely.

Kirobo only speaks Japanese, so he won't be chatting it up much with the American, Italian and Russian crew members that are currently on the station. However, in November, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will arrive on board the station, as part of Expedition 38, and he will take command of the station when Expedition 39 starts in March.

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Although there have been robots on the ISS since it was first put together (the Canadarm2 assisted in its construction), Kirobo is now the second humanoid robot on the station. The first humanoid robot, called Robonaut 2, arrived last year, but he isn't so talkative. Maybe he'll warm up a bit now that he has a little buddy on the station.

(Photo courtesy: NASA/Kibo-Robot Project/Toyota Corp.)

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