Space Business Podcast #152 | Space Robots | Ethan Barajas & Jamie Palmer, Icarus Robotics
Oct 27, 2025
Ethan Barajas and Jamie Palmer, the co-founders of Icarus Robotics, are pioneering dexterous free-flying robots for space. They discuss the vital roles these robots will play in commercial space stations, from cargo handling to autonomous tasks. The duo dives into the challenges of adapting Earth-trained robots for microgravity and highlights the competitive landscape driving innovation. They share insights on future lunar and Martian expansions, potential commercial applications, and even their favorite sci-fi robots that inspire their work.
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Robots As Orbital Workforce
- Icarus builds dexterous free-flying robots to augment astronauts and handle routine, time-consuming, and hazardous tasks in stations.
- The goal is to unlock scalable commercial manufacturing and experimentation by reducing reliance on costly astronaut hours.
Cargo Resupply Eats Crew Time
- Cargo resupply on ISS consumes a huge portion of crew time: unpacking and repacking three and a half tons takes weeks per resupply cycle.
- Astronauts often spend experiment time just fetching supplies, reducing effective research time dramatically.
Space Needs Space-Specific Robot Learning
- Space lags behind terrestrial robotics because space demands deterministic, interpretable systems while new robot learning thrives on data-driven methods.
- Icarus collects remote-control examples from Earth-to-space to build a corpus of microgravity manipulation data for training autonomy.