Speaking robot has sent to the space from Japan

He is only 34 centimetres tall and weighs just one kilo, but he's going to be launched into space. Kirobo, a knee-high talking robot, rocketed off from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center on Sunday in an unmanned cargo vessel headed to the International Space Station.The black-and-white bodied robot in red boots was developed by the University of Tokyo, Toyota Motor Corp and Dentsu Inc and will stay in space until late 2014. He'll be there to help the work of Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Kirobo's name'es from the word "kibo" and "robot".He speaks only Japanese and is equipped with voice- and facial-recognition technology.

His job will largely consist of talking with Wakata, who will be his partner during the first robot-human chats in space until his take off for the space station with six other crew members in November.On Sunday a rocket launched from Japan bound for the ISS with about five tons of supplies for the astronauts aboard the space station. Also on board for Japan's future astronaut Koichi Wakata was a 13-inch-high robot, said to be the first talking robot in space.The small humanoid machine, called Kirobo, was specifically designed to be a digital'panion for Wakata. Kirobo was designed with the help of Toyota and will'municate with another robot back on Earth.

It's capable of more or less natural speaking interactions, and can choose its responses to conversational gambits from among the words it has learned.Kiribo builds on a Japanese trend of using cute robots as'panions. Experiments with the robotic seal toy Paro after the earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear disaster in early 2012 showed great success in helping lift the spirits of survivors.Kirobo will join the much larger and future-facing Robonaut 2 humanoid robot aboard the ISS. Robonaut is an experimental tool that may be able to replace astronauts in some dangerous space-walking tasks.