A test is being prepared for NASA’s humanoid robot – it will take care of energy objects

NASA’s humanoid robot named Valkyrie will be tested as a remote maintenance crew for oil rigs. This is reported by The Register.

According to NASA, the Valkyrie is headed to Western Australia, where Woodside Energy will test it for “remote caretaking of uncrewed and offshore energy facilities.”

The energy company will pay for NASA’s costs as the agency works to “develop remote mobile dexterous manipulation capabilities” to care for unmanned facilities.

Instead, Woodside Energy will test the robot’s software and provide data to NASA. The agency will be able to use them to accelerate the development of robots for remote control from Earth, when the robot will be on Mars or the moon without astronauts.

Extraterrestrial tasks for robots could include inspecting and maintaining infrastructure, as well as tending to plants grown in outer space. NASA hopes that Valkyrie will be able to perform “dull and repetitive tasks,” thereby freeing up human time for higher-level work.

The six-foot Valkyrie, also known as the R5, has reportedly been in development for a decade, but has had poor performance in the past. The robot runs on Intel Core i7 processors and has a battery with a capacity of 1.8 kWh. It can work independently for about an hour.