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Google Cloud and NASA test a robot driven by an open model

Google Cloud described a proof-of-concept robot built with NASA's Human Research Program, Johnson Space Center and JPL that located and moved a medical bag on text commands. It runs Physical Intelligence's open Pi0 vision-language-action model, about 4 billion parameters, fine-tuned in 2.5 hours, and reached an 85% initial success rate in a lab A. Google does not give trial counts or failure modes, and calls the figure a baseline. The pitch for deep space is that a model this small can run on hardware a spacecraft can carry. SourcesA

Sources

• AGoogle Cloud and NASA testing robotic systems for deep space missions (Google Cloud)cloud.google.com

This story ran in the Afternoon Brief of October 28th 2026.