Station Astronauts Remotely Control Planetary Rover From Space

From the  ISS Science Newsletter:
On June 17 and July 26, NASA tested the Surface Telerobotics exploration concept, in which an astronaut in an orbiting spacecraft remotely operates a robot on a planetary surface. In the future, astronauts orbiting other planetary bodies, such as Mars, asteroids or the moon, could use this approach to perform work on the surface using robotic avatars.

·         During the June 17 test, Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA remotely operated the K10 planetary rover in the Roverscape – an outdoor robotic test area the size of two football fields located at NASA Ames – hundreds of miles below on Earth's surface from his post aboard the International Space Station (ISS). For more than three hours, Cassidy used the robot to perform a survey of the Roverscape’s rocky, lunar-like terrain. The July 26 test picked up where Cassidy left off. Fellow Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency remotely-controlled the rover and began deploying a simulated Kapton film-based radio antenna.

·         The primary goal of the Human Exploration Telerobotics project is to understand how human and robot activities, such as Surface Telerobotics, can be coordinated to improve crew safety, enhance science activities and increase mission success while also reducing cost, risk and consumables, such as fuel and oxygen, during future exploration missions.

K10 Black planetary rover at NASA Ames Research Center

 You can read the entire article HERE