A Japanese robot has successfully spoken from space for the first time.

Kiboro, Japan’s first robot astronaut, spoke from the International Space Station to say “robots are taking their first step towards a shining future.”

It took Kirobo, whose name is a mixture of hope and robot in Japanese, six days to reach the station and he won’t be coming back down to earth for another year and a half.

His mission: to carry out orders given to him from below until a Japanese astronaut arrives later this year to communicate face to face.

The other astronauts won’t be able table to interact with Kirobo unless they speak Japanese, his native tongue.

Kirobo was developed by Tokyo University, Toyota Motor Corporation, advertising agency Dentsu and Robo Garage.

He is scheduled to return to earth in December 2014.