Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Joshua S. Mehling is a pioneering roboticist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center whose work has fundamentally shaped the development of humanoid robots for space exploration. His key research areas span dexterous manipulation, series elastic actuator control, and mobile humanoid systems designed to assist astronauts in extreme environments. Mehling’s most celebrated contribution is Robonaut 2, the first humanoid robot in space (451 citations), which arrived on the International Space Station in 2011 and demonstrated that anthropomorphic robots could perform delicate tasks alongside humans. He also led the development of Valkyrie, NASA’s first bipedal humanoid robot (298 citations), a 1.8-meter tall machine designed for disaster response and future planetary missions. His technical innovations include a decoupled dynamics approach for torque control of series elastic actuators (256 citations), enabling humanoid robots to achieve both stiff and compliant behaviors safely. Beyond these flagship projects, Mehling has contributed to the Tendril robot for minimally invasive in-space inspection (141 citations) and the Centaur mobile humanoid for field work (50 citations). His work bridges the gap between theoretical control systems and practical space robotics, earning him recognition as a key architect of NASA’s humanoid robotics program.