ORBIT has revealed HELIOS, a humanoid robot for space robotics with four arms and four hands. The Zurich team said the system follows two semesters of work, research and iteration, and will present the robot at the ETH Focus Rollout on May 27 at the CLA Glashalle.

ORBIT is an ETH Focus Project building humanoid robotic platforms for orbital operations. The team describes itself as 10 bachelor students developing a humanoid robot for low- and zero-gravity deployment; ETH describes the project as a remotely controlled robot for movement in low gravity or weightlessness and precise object handling during maintenance and construction work.

HELIOS follows IKARUS, ORBIT’s first rapid prototyping platform. IKARUS combined a 5-DoF robotic arm, a 17-DoF ORCA hand and a 2-DoF head with an RGB camera, and was designed for precise teleoperation through a MetaQuest VR device with the camera stream serving as visual feedback to the operator. ORBIT said IKARUS moved from CAD sketches to a fully assembled prototype in one month, then became the learning base for a full humanoid-like system for zero-gravity environments.

The team’s disclosed engineering work has focused on teleoperation, manipulation and physical compliance. In an earlier update, ORBIT described low gear-ratio quasi direct-drive motors, joint-level impedance control and feed-forward gravity compensation as part of its effort to make the robot respond gently when it contacts people, instruments or equipment.

The reveal remains a prototype-stage launch. ORBIT has not disclosed a spaceflight plan, customer deployment, funding round, production target or commercial availability for HELIOS. The next public milestone is ETH Focus Rollout, where the team is scheduled to present alongside other 2025/26 Focus Projects.

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