With its soaring temperatures and toxic atmosphere, Venus is a punishing place. The longest amount of time a spacecraft has survived on the planet’s surface is just over 50 minutes, when the Soviet-designed Vega 2 mission landed there in 1985.

That’s why NASA dubbed the latest challenge in its Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments (AREE) project “Exploring Hell”: Could designers build a mechanically powered robot that can withstand the harsh environment and explore the unknown world?

NASA researchers are developing a series of soft robot actuators to investigate the viability of soft robotics in space exploration and assembly.