![](\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2016\/04\/space_internet\/15971367-1-eng-GB\/Space_Internet_small.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\nOn 29 April, ESA astronaut Tim Peake on the International Space Station took control of a rover nicknamed Bridget in the UK and over two hours drove it into a simulated cave and found and identified targets despite the dark and limited feedback information.\n<\/p>\n
\nBefore and after Tim came online from the orbiting Station, control of the rover was passed several times between engineers at the Airbus D&S \u2018Mars Yard\u2019 in Stevenage, UK, Belgium\u2019s ISS User Support Centre in Brussels and ESA\u2019s ESOC operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis complex realtime choreography was possible thanks to the \u2018Internet in space\u2019 \u2013 a network that tolerates disruptions \u2013 put in place by teams at ESOC.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis network enables remote control of rovers or other devices in the difficult environment of space, with its long distances and frequent connection blackouts inevitable with orbital motion.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cA disruption-tolerant network works along the same principles as the terrestrial Internet, and is necessary for this type of complex system,\u201d says ESA’s Paul Steele, System Operations Manager.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe had already proven the network in previous tests, and this time we needed an astronaut to try remotely driving a rover in darkness to simulate entering a cave or the shadow of a crater. We used the geographically dispersed engineering teams to test and evaluate distributed operations and end-to-end operation methods.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThe effort was part of ESA\u2019s Meteron (Multi-Purpose End-To-End Rover Operations Network) project, which is investigating, for example, which tasks are better done robotically and which by a human, and what data are needed to support the monitoring and control of assets such as rovers, far away on a planet or even a comet.\n<\/p>\n
\nIts results will feed directly into plans for future exploration and the design of mission systems.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis experiment showed we can operate rovers while orbiting another body like our Moon or a planet, and marked a significant step in our vision to send astronauts and robots together to explore the Solar System,\u201d said Kim Nergaard, ground segment manager for Meteron.\n<\/p>\n
\nMore information<\/b>\n<\/p>\n
ESOC<\/a> \nOn 29 April, ESA astronaut Tim Peake on the International Space Station took control of a rover nicknamed Bridget in the UK and over two hours drove it into a simulated cave and found and identified targets despite the dark and limited feedback information.\n<\/p>\n \nBefore and after Tim came online from the orbiting Station, control of the rover was passed several times between engineers at the Airbus D&S ‘Mars Yard’ in Stevenage, UK, Belgium’s ISS User Support Centre in Brussels and ESA’s ESOC operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany.\n<\/p>\n \nThis complex realtime choreography was possible thanks to the ‘Internet in space’ – a network that tolerates disruptions – put in place by teams at ESOC.\n<\/p>\n \nThis network enables remote control of rovers or other devices in the difficult environment of space, with its long distances and frequent connection blackouts inevitable with orbital motion.\n<\/p>\n \n“A disruption-tolerant network works along the same principles as the terrestrial Internet, and is necessary for this type of complex system,” says ESA’s Paul Steele, System Operations Manager.\n<\/p>\n \n“We had already proven the network in previous tests, and this time we needed an astronaut to try remotely driving a rover in darkness to simulate entering a cave or the shadow of a crater. We used the geographically dispersed engineering teams to test and evaluate distributed operations and end-to-end operation methods.”\n<\/p>\n \nThe effort was part of ESA’s Meteron (Multi-Purpose End-To-End Rover Operations Network) project, which is investigating, for example, which tasks are better done robotically and which by a human, and what data are needed to support the monitoring and control of assets such as rovers, far away on a planet or even a comet.\n<\/p>\n \nIts results will feed directly into plans for future exploration and the design of mission systems.\n<\/p>\n \n“This experiment showed we can operate rovers while orbiting another body like our Moon or a planet, and marked a significant step in our vision to send astronauts and robots together to explore the Solar System,” said Kim Nergaard, ground segment manager for Meteron.\n<\/p>\n \nMore information<\/b>\n<\/p>\n ESOC<\/a>
\nMeteron<\/a>
Meteron blog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
Meteron<\/a>
Meteron blog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240902,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240901\/revisions\/240902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}