ExoMy - Open source build-it-yourself rover developed by ESA. It is inspired by the ExoMars rover and designed to be a low-cost platform for educational purposes. ExoMy features Ackermann steering and can be controlled via ROS using an onboard Raspberry Pi.
JPL Open Source Rover - Open source build-it-yourself rover developed by JPL. It is based on the deployed Mars rovers and designed to be an affordable platform for education and research. The rover can be controlled via ROS using an onboard Raspberry Pi.
Curiosity - NASA’s car-sized Mars rover powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. It uses a rocker-bogie suspension, a 2.1-metre robotic arm with a drill and spectrometers, and autonomous navigation to traverse Gale Crater since 2012.
Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit & Opportunity) - NASA’s twin solar-powered rovers with rocker-bogie suspension and a five-degree-of-freedom instrument arm. Designed for 90 sols, Spirit operated until 2010 and Opportunity until 2018, validating long-duration autonomous rover operations on Mars.
MASCOT - Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout developed by DLR and CNES. The shoebox-sized lander was deployed from JAXA’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft to the asteroid Ryugu in 2018, where it hopped across the surface to perform in situ measurements.
Perseverance - NASA’s Mars rover that landed in Jezero Crater in 2021. It carries seven science instruments, a robotic arm with a drill for coring rock samples, and deployed the Ingenuity helicopter for the first powered flight on another planet.
Sojourner - NASA’s first Mars rover, a 10.6 kg six-wheeled microrobot that landed in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission. It demonstrated semi-autonomous navigation with hazard avoidance and conducted soil and rock analyses using an alpha proton X-ray spectrometer over 83 sols.
CADRE - Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration, a NASA JPL project deploying a team of shoebox-sized rovers to the Moon. They will autonomously coordinate to map the lunar surface using multi-robot exploration strategies without human intervention.
LEMUR - Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robot developed by JPL. A four-limbed climbing robot with hundreds of micro-spine grippers that can scale rock walls and inspect spacecraft exteriors in microgravity.
RASSOR - Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot developed by NASA Kennedy Space Center. A compact excavation robot designed to mine regolith on the Moon and Mars using counter-rotating bucket drums.
RoboSimian - Four-limbed robot developed by JPL with seven degrees of freedom per limb. Originally built for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, it now serves as a wheel-on-limb rover research platform for planetary exploration, with mobility tested on ocean-world analogue terrain.
Ingenuity - NASA’s 1.8 kg coaxial-rotor helicopter that achieved the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. Solar-powered with autonomous flight capability, it completed 72 flights over nearly three years on Mars, serving as a technology demonstrator and aerial scout for the Perseverance rover.
Dragonfly - NASA dual-quadcopter rotorcraft designed to fly on Saturn’s moon Titan. Leveraging Titan’s dense atmosphere and low gravity, the 450 kg lander will hop between multiple sites to study prebiotic chemistry using a mass spectrometer, gamma-ray spectrometer, and drill.
Astrobee - Free-flying robotic system developed by NASA to assist astronauts inside the ISS. Three Astrobees were launched to the ISS in 2019, each equipped with cameras, sensors, and a perching arm. The software stack is open source and built using ROS and Gazebo.
Int-Ball2 - Second-generation free-flying camera robot developed by JAXA for the ISS Kibo module. Building on the original Int-Ball deployed in 2017, it features improved autonomous navigation and positioning, enabling ground controllers to remotely capture images and video of crew activities and experiments without astronaut assistance.
Canadarm2 - Robotic arm on the ISS built by MDA for the Canadian Space Agency. The 17-metre arm is used for station maintenance, moving supplies, and supporting spacewalks. It can move end-over-end to reach many parts of the ISS.
Dextre - Two-armed dexterous manipulator on the ISS that serves as a robotic handyman for delicate maintenance tasks. Built by MDA for the Canadian Space Agency, Dextre is mounted on Canadarm2 and can handle orbital replaceable units.
ERA - European Robotic Arm installed on the Russian segment of the ISS. The 11.3-metre arm can move from one base point to another around the station’s exterior for maintenance and payload handling tasks.
JEM-RMS - Japanese Experiment Module Remote Manipulator System on the ISS Kibo module. It consists of a main arm and a small fine arm for handling experiments and payloads on the external platform.
Canadarm3 - Next-generation robotic system being developed by MDA for the Lunar Gateway. It consists of a large and a small dexterous arm with AI-based autonomy, designed to maintain and repair the Gateway station with minimal crew intervention.
GITAI Inchworm Robot - Robotic arm developed by GITAI for in-orbit and lunar surface operations. It uses an inchworm locomotion concept to move along spacecraft structures and perform assembly, inspection, and maintenance tasks.
Robonaut 2 (R2) - Humanoid robot developed by NASA to assist astronauts onboard the ISS. R2 was launched in 2011 as the first humanoid robot in space and has since been used in various experiments on simple manipulation tasks.
Rollin’ Justin - Mobile humanoid robot developed by DLR with two torque-controlled arms and dexterous hands mounted on a wheeled platform. It serves as a testbed for autonomous and teleoperated space robotics research, including Earth-to-space teleoperation experiments.
Valkyrie (R5) - NASA’s bipedal humanoid robot designed for disaster response and space exploration. Standing 1.8 m tall, Valkyrie is used as a research platform for developing dexterous manipulation and locomotion capabilities for future planetary surface operations.