---
title: "Russia’s Working on a Lunar Rover With a Humanoid Torso"
description: "Russia is working on a lunar rover with a wheeled base supporting the body of its humanoid robot Fedor, which has already visited the ISS."
date: "2019-10-15"
modified: "2019-10-15"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/russia-robot-lunar-rover"
categories:
  - "Off-World"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "fedor"
  - "lunar rover"
  - "Roscosmos"
  - "the digest"
---

# Russia’s Working on a Lunar Rover With a Humanoid Torso

![Russia is working on a lunar rover with a wheeled base supporting the body of its humanoid robot Fedor, which has already visited the ISS.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/russia-robot-lunar-rover1.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Image from Military Technology via YouTube\</em\>*

## Fedor's Future

In August, Russia sent its gun-toting humanoid robot Fedor to the [International Space Station](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/russia-robot-fedor-space>), where it spent a couple weeks learning how to be a cosmonaut.

Now that Fedor is back on Earth, the nation's space agency has revealed that the [bot's next destination](<https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/russia-wants-to-remove-space-robots-legs-give-it-wheels-send-it-to-the-moon/>) is the Moon — but first, they're going to chop off its legs and attach it to a lunar rover, according to a [new story](<https://ria.ru/20191015/1559791020.html>) by state-run news service *RIA Novosti*.

## Wheels Up

A source in Roscosmos reportedly told *RIA Novosti* that the agency plans to send a lunar rover with a wheeled body — pretty standard amongst rovers — and the torso, head, and arms of a Fedor robot to the Moon in three to four years.

Fedor has already proven it can [use tools](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/watch-russia-humanoid-robot-fedor-electric-drill-space>), drive a car, and even [shoot a gun](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/russia-gun-robot-space-station>), so by adding the humanoid's top half to a rover, Russia will be creating a bot with incredible dexterity.

## Walk This Way

The United Kingdom is also rethinking lunar rover design, but its strategy is the opposite of Russia's — it plans to send a cube-shaped [rover with spider-like legs](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/moon-rover-legs-not-wheels>) instead of wheels to the Moon in 2021, the idea being that the bot's legs might allow it to explore terrain a wheeled bot couldn't reach.

It seems both agencies are working to create rovers that are a little more inspired by human biology — making them the perfect fill-in until we can put real people back on the Moon.

**READ MORE:** [Russia wants to remove space robot’s legs, give it wheels, send it to the Moon](<https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/russia-wants-to-remove-space-robots-legs-give-it-wheels-send-it-to-the-moon/>) \[*Ars Technica*\]

**More on Fedor:** *[Watch Russia’s Gun-Toting Robot Use a Power Drill on the ISS](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/watch-russia-humanoid-robot-fedor-electric-drill-space>)*

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)