Robots are about to go underground -- for a competition anyways. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense dedicated to developing new emerging technologies, is holding a challenge intended to develop technology for first responders and the military to map, navigate, and search underground. But the technology developed for the competition could also be used in future NASA missions to caves and lava tubes on other planets. The DARPA Subterranean Challenge Systems Competition will be held August 15 – 22 in mining tunnels under Pittsburgh, and among the robots competing will be an entry from a team led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that features wheeled rovers, drones, and climbing robots that can rise on pinball-flipper-shaped treads to scale obstacles. "By investing in this competition, we are investing in our future," Leon Alkalai, manager of the JPL Office of Strategic Planning, said in a statement.

The International Space Station sits at an altitude of approximately 220 miles above the Earth in this photo taken by Expedition 27 crew member Paolo Nespoli from the Soyuz TMA-20 following its undocking. Inside NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley is a test environment that simulates the International Space Station's pressurized capsules. Here, aerospace engineers test the new Astrobee intra vehicular activity (IVA) robots, which will be heading to the ISS in the spring. These robots are 1-by-1-foot cubes, with an array of LED communication lights. They can function autonomously or be remotely controlled from Houston.

Four sister robots built by NASA could be pioneers in the colonization of Mars, part of an advance construction team that sets up a habitat for more fragile human explorers. But first they're finding new homes on Earth and engineers to hone their skills. The space agency has kept one Valkyrie robot at its birthplace, the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It has loaned three others to universities in Massachusetts and Scotland so professors and students can tinker with the 1.8-metre tall, 125-kilogram humanoids and make them more autonomous. One of the robots, nicknamed Val, still hasn't quite harmonized its 28 torque-controlled joints and nearly 200 sensors after arriving at a robotics centre at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Northeastern University Ph.D. student Murphy Wonsick adjusts the leg of a six-foot-tall, 125 kg Valkyrie robot at University of Massachusetts-Lowell's robotics centre in Lowell, Mass.

Four sister robots built by NASA could be pioneers in the colonization of Mars, part of an advance construction team that sets up a habitat for more fragile human explorers. But first they're finding new homes on Earth and engineers to hone their skills.

Man-machine collaboration could reach new heights far from home, as humanoid robots show potential for deep-space travel. NASA has sent prototype robots to two university groups for further research and development. Initially designed for disaster relief during a previous robotics challenge, the R5 robots could someday be among the first to demonstrate humanoid robot models' usefulness for distant space missions, the space agency suggests. "Advances in robotics, including human-robotic collaboration, are critical to developing the capabilities required for our journey to Mars," Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters, said in a press release. "We are excited to engage these university research groups to help NASA with this next big step in robotics technology development."