Future-proof automatic milking solutions and digital resilience on-farm

“Business continuity is crucial for our farmers. Both in terms of the reliability of the milking processes and digital resilience. Astronaut Max and Astronaut A5 Next are designed to provide farmers with stability in their dairy operations and offer future-proof automatic milking solutions. Furthermore, with the increase in digital services on the farm, data security is essential. Lely Hub supports our farmers by improving digital safety between Lely solutions and the internet.” says André van Troost, CEO Lely. 

Making the best even better: Astronaut A5 Next 
With the launch of Astronaut A5 Next, Lely offers farmers a future-proof automatic milking solution by making the best even better. The most significant change is the completely new and future-proof operating system that improves serviceability through remote assistance and over-the-air software updates. Backward compatibility enables farmers with an A5 to upgrade to certain features of A5 Next. Secondly, a robot arm that combines precision and vision with laser and camera, offers better visibility of the cow's teats. This contributes to improving animal health and welfare. For the Astronaut, the added Automatic milk filter automates the last remaining manual and repetitive routine in the milking process. Finally, to make automatic milking accessible to a larger group of farmers worldwide, cow identification through Eartag ID is now part of our cow health portfolio. From today, the Astronaut A5 Next is commercially available through Lely Centers. For Canada and the US, Astronaut A5 Next will be available after local validation in 2026.  

Astronaut Max introduces a new standard for automatic milking on large-scale farms 
Lely is committed to bring automatic milking to more farms globally. Currently, Astronaut Max can connect up to 18 Astronaut milking robots in one control room and is therefore suitable for farms with 500–1100 cows. It supports the robots in all their peripheral needs such as vacuum, compressed air, cleaning water, udder care and milk transport. Astronaut Max centralises the milking and cleaning processes and storage for cleaning and udder care consumables, the latter contributing to a safe working environment and shortening of labour routines. Milking and cleaning can be performed independently of each other, which means the milking robots can remain operational even during service and robot cleaning. This significantly increases uptime and milk capacity. Astronaut Max is currently in validation and follows a phased roll out, starting from 2026.

Improving digital resilience and data security on-farm with Lely Hub 
For farmers, their farm and herd are their most valuable assets. Over the years, farmers have increasingly automated and digitised processes on their farms, enhancing the well-being of their cows and boosting the farm's operations. When working with Lely solutions such as Astronaut or Vector, various sensors collect data about the cows and the robots. Lely Hub offers a dedicated device that improves the safety and security of data from Lely robots and Horizon, Lely’s data management platform. Lely Hub is installed at the farm, serving as a shield between the robots and the farmer's computer or mobile phone, and is managed and monitored by Lely. Lely Hub offers farmers peace of mind, supports business continuity and can therefore contribute to animal welfare. A phased rollout is expected from 2026.

For more information about Astronaut A5 Next, please visit www.lely.com/nz/solutions/milking/astronaut/   
For more information about Astronaut Max, please visit www.lely.com/solutions/milking/astronaut-max/
For more information about Lely Hub, please visit www.lely.com/solutions/farm-management-software/hub/