Two Guinness World Records titles have been awarded to Kirobo, the robot astronaut developed as part of a joint research project between Dentsu Inc., 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).

Erika Ogawa, VP Japan, Guinness World Records Ltd., recently presented Kirobo with two Guinness World Records certificates for being the first companion robot in space, which arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Aug. 9, 2013, and the highest altitude for a robot to have a conversation at 414.2 km above mean sea level achieved on the ISS on Dec. 7, 2013.

Takayuki Yoshitsugu, chief representative, MENA representative office, Toyota Motor Corporation, said: “The recognition by Guinness World Records is a wonderful acknowledgement of the achievements by Kirobo and a dedicated multi-disciplinary team who have pushed the boundaries of science and technology to understand how humans and robots might interact in space in the future.”

Adel Ezzat, MD, Toyota marketing at Abdul Latif Jameel, the authorized distributor of Toyota vehicles in Saudi Arabia, said Kirobo’s journey is “inspiring, in that it opens a new era of innovation at Toyota, in which the company foresees the transportation needs of people in both the near and far future.”

Kirobo arrived at the ISS on Aug. 10, 2013 and spent a total of 18 months there, holding the world’s first conversation experiment in outer space between a robot and a human (JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata).

On Feb. 10, 2015, Kirobo came safely back to earth aboard SpaceX’s CRS-5 Dragon cargo supply spacecraft, which splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off California, and then arrived back in Japan on March 12. Kirobo’s first words were: “From up above, the earth glowed like a blue LED.”