ANALOG-1 ISS – The first part of an analogue mission to guide ESA’s robotic moon exploration efforts

Abstract

The European Space Agency’s ANALOG-1 experiment is the culmination of 12 distinct METERON experiments carried out since 2011. These all address aspects of teleoperating a robotic asset from an orbital platform, i.e., technical implementation, user interfaces, autonomy and operations. The ANALOG-1 technology demonstration and operations concept experiment is based upon the surface mission scenario segment of the notional EL3 sample return mission. This segment focuses on the control of a lunar surface robotic asset from the Earth and from the Lunar Gateway. The experiment is taking place in two parts, with the first successfully completed from the ISS in November 2019. It assessed the effectiveness of a state-of-the-art robotic control interface to control a complex mobile robot from orbit, as well as evaluating the scientific interactions, during robotic-assisted geology exploration, between crew in orbit and scientists on the ground. Luca Parmitano operated the robot while he was on the ISS. For this experiment, a complex control station had been installed on the ISS. The experiment demonstrated the advantage of having an immersive control station and high level of robotic dexterity, with Luca finishing all his assigned and secondary geology targets ahead of time.

Addressing disaster and health risks for sustainable outer space

“…Such research makes valuable contributions to health risk reduction for astronauts, including those traveling to Mars (Payler et al, 2019). Analogue missions further provide the opportunity to trial human-robotic space research, including developing safety procedures and standards for this hybrid model of working (Wedler et al, 2021;Wormnes et al, 2022). All this work, in turn, contributes to DRR/R by adopting the ethos of prevention, preparedness, and planning for risks (Chan & Shaw, 2020).…”

Haptic Systems: Trends and Lessons Learned for Haptics in Spacesuits

“…A paper by the European Space Agency (ESA) [94] presented experiment ANALOG-1, where the astronaut Luca Parmitano used a robotic arm to operate a ground-based rover fitted with a sophisticated gripper, which has the same mobility and dexterity as a human hand while orbiting the Earth at an 8 km/s speed from the International Space Station. From a mock-lunar environment, the gripper could pick up and collect sample rocks while being controlled by Luca using a 'force-feedback' joystick back in the ISS.…”