Bethesda announced that Starfield will have several companions that you can use to travel through the game. The universe is big and there are a huge amount of planets to explore, a companion can definitely come in handy with helping you survive and even more important, carrying stuff around.
There are also hints from Bethesda which say that the companions might have different roles, some are more aggressive, some are just here to carry stuff around etc.
So far Starfield has revealed one of its companions. The companion is called VASCO, Constellation's expeditionary robot.
Not much is known about VASCO yet, Bethesda released a video about him and he has been appearing in several gameplay videos from Starfield.