GITAI Partners With JAXA to Send Telepresence Robots to Space

GITAI is a robotics startup with offices in Japan and the United States that's developing tech to put humanoid telepresence robots in space to take over for astronauts. Today, GITAI is announcing a joint research agreement with JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) to see what it takes for robots to be useful in orbit, with the goal of substantially reducing the amount of money spent sending food and air up to those demanding humans on the International Space Station. It's also worth noting that GITAI has some new hires, including folks from the famous (and somewhat mysterious) Japanese bipedal robot company SCHAFT. A quick reminder about SCHAFT: The company was founded by members of the JSK Laboratory at the University of Tokyo in order to build a robot to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials in 2013. SCHAFT won the DRC Trials by a substantial margin, scoring 27 points out of a possible 32, 7 more points than the second place team (IHMC).