ISS astronaut controls Bert the dog-like robot on Earth during simulated Mars mission

A four-legged dog-shaped robot with googly eyes and a thick antenna serving as a "head", inside a lab with equipment and computers.

Space robotics has gone to the dogs.

International Space Station astronaut Marcus Wandt controlled Bert, a four-legged robot pal, from space for the first time in January. Putting legs on a robot, instead of wheels, may allow machines to more easily climb hills or crawl into caves on Mars or other worlds, project manager DLR (the German space agency) said in a recent statement.