NASA just announced two university groups that were selected to help develop and upgrade official NASA robots that will someday explore Mars and beyond.

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The official teams are from the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Northeastern University that were given prototypes of NASA's R5 humanoid robot to develop and improve them for more advanced research.

The R5 was originally designed by NASA which is also known as a bipedal robot called Valkyrie that aims to aid in disaster relief and emergency situations. However, the U.S. space agency also plans to utilize the robot for space exploration missions that will involve performing tasks with humans or along with a crew.

To date, NASA is planning to send the first humans to Mars by the 2030s where the space agency will also send a manned mission to an asteroid prior to colonizing the Red Planet. 

According to the associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate at the NASA headquarters, Steve Jurczyk, these are all critical in developing the required capabilities for the grand journey to Mars, where any advances in robotics including humans collaborating with robots are all crucial for this mission.

At this stage, a NASA spokesperson will coordinate with the two university teams to negotiate a cooperative agreement. NASA will also be responsible for training students and faculty using NASA laboratories and facilities where the new robots will be built. The robots are slated to be shipped in January.

Most importantly, the two teams will also receive funding from NASA reaching about US $250,000 in a span of two years to build their own versions of the R5 including research and development. These two groups are also selected from several teams that participated in the recent Robotics Challenge hosted by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

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