If these aren’t some of the coolest looking robots I’ve seen – there is something so accessible about them, like R2D2 or BB8. Apparently, NASA just sent two of them, called “Astrobees” up to the International Space Station. A third one will be sent up at a later date.

Via Space.com:

Astrobees look like the robot companions you might expect to find in a science fiction film — they’re small (about the size of a bread loaf), cube-shaped, free-flying little machines. But the Astrobees are entirely functional bots that have joined the crew aboard the space station, and, in the near future, they will be joined by a third bot. For now, the two Astrobees currently on the station will practice helping astronauts with routine tasks. One of the many purposes of the Astrobees is to reduce the amount of time that astronauts have to spend on mundane tasks like finding lost pieces of equipment. 

I might need a few of these once we finally get that Slobot Space Station we’ve been asking Santa for, lol.

via space.com and popularmechanics.com