Robot Astronaut Kirobo to Return to Earth

Dentsu Inc. (TOKYO: 4324) (ISIN: JP3551520004) (President & CEO: Tadashi Ishii; Head Office: Tokyo; Capital: 74,609.81 million yen) announced today that Kirobo, the robot astronaut that spent eighteen months aboard the International Space Station (ISS), is scheduled to return to Earth tomorrow.

Kirobo in the ISS just before his return to Earth (Photo: Business Wire)

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the USA, Kirobo will board SpaceX’s CRS-5 Dragon cargo supply spacecraft at 7:09 p.m. on Tuesday, February 10 (Greenwich Mean Time) and leave the ISS. The spacecraft is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean at 0:44 a.m. on Wednesday, February 11 (Greenwich Mean Time). A debriefing session on Kirobo’s return to Japan is scheduled to be held in Japan in late March.

Kirobo and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata held the world’s first conversation experiment between a robot and a human in outer space, and conducted research for a future in which humans and robots coexist.

Robot astronaut Kirobo was developed under the KIBO ROBOT PROJECT, a joint research project carried out in collaboration with the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, ROBO GARAGE Co., Ltd., Toyota Motor Corporation, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Kibo Robot Project Official Site: http://kibo-robo.jp/

[About the Dentsu Group]

Dentsu is the world’s largest advertising agency brand. Led by Dentsu Inc. (Tokyo: 4324; ISIN: JP3551520004), a company with a history of 113 years of innovation, the Dentsu Group provides a comprehensive range of client-centric brand, integrated communications, media and digital services through its eight global network brands—Carat, Dentsu, Dentsu media, iProspect, Isobar, mcgarrybowen, Posterscope and Vizeum—as well as through its specialist/multi-market brands including Amnet, Amplifi, Data2Decisions, Mitchell Communications (PR), psLIVE and 360i.

The Dentsu Group has a strong presence in 124 countries across five continents, and employs around 40,000 dedicated professionals. Dentsu Aegis Network Ltd., its global business headquarters in London, oversees Dentsu’s agency operations outside of Japan. The Group is also active in the production and marketing of sports and entertainment content on a global scale.
www.dentsu.com

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