Astronauts Remotely Control Rovers on Earth from the International Space Station

Posted on July 30, 2013

Astronauts on the International Space Station have been remotely controlling rovers on Earth in a series of tests. The K10 Planetary Rovers are pictured above. They are 4.5 feet tall, weigh 220 pounds and travel at 3 feet per second. The experiment was a test of NASA's 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.

Terry Fong, director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA's Ames Research Center, said in a statement, "The initial test was notable for achieving a number of firsts for NASA and the field of human-robotic exploration. Specifically, this project represents the first fully-interactive remote operation of a planetary rover by an astronaut in space."

During the June 17 test, Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA remotely operated the K10 planetary rover in the Roverscape from hundreds of miles above the Earth's surface in the ISS. The Roverscape is an outdoor robotic test area the size of two football fields located at NASA Ames. Cassidy used the robot to perform a survey of the Roverscape's terrain for more than three hours. 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 tests represent the first time NASA's Robot Application Programming Interface Delegate (RAPID) robot data messaging system was used to control a robot from space. NASA will conduct a final test session with the space station in August. During this test, engineers and an astronaut will inspect the deployed antenna and study human-robot interaction.

Fong says, "During future missions beyond low-Earth orbit, some work will not be feasible for humans to do manually. Robots will complement human explorers, allowing astronauts to perform work via remote control from a space station, spacecraft or other habitat."

In this photograph, Estrellina Pacis is on console as science lead in the Multi-Mission Operations Center during a Surface Telerobotics Operational Readiness Test at NASA's Ames Research Center.

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