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 |
