Automate it in a test environment that simulates production as closely as possible. Once the automated software updates work flawlessly under various conditions, use that in production.
Then an unexpected condition happens and the automated response breaks something badly, and suddenly your expensive robot is now an expensive piece of junk.
What makes you think they haven't already tested the hell out of it?
We are not talking about some machine in amazon cloud there. We are talking about the robot on the freaking Mars.