Photo credit: DLR-E. Hellerslien
A crimson landscape that resembles Mars’ surface can be found in a rural area in Germany. Jonny Kim, a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station, leaned into a custom interface, his hands on a joystick and a haptic device, preparing to lead a team of robots in this foreign environment. The Surface Avatar project, a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), concluded with this session. What exactly is the goal? To perfect astronauts’ ability to control robotic teams on far away worlds like the Moon or Mars from orbit.