Mars test depuis l’Espace

Mars Yard Test Area

Creadire  :  » je ne résiste pas à vous faire partager cette expérience »

eh oui la semaine dernière, je parlais à l’Astronaute, juste après sa sortie extra véhiculaire » et juste avant que la Station Spatiale Internatinoale reçoive le vol de ravitaillement.

et voici le 29 avril une expérience pour tester la communication depuis l’espace avec le véhicule qui sera sur terre

 

communication privée avec l'Espace

communication privée avec l’Espace

 

On 29th April 2016, the Mars Yard Test Area at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage will be the location for a very special test:  European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Tim Peake will drive the rover prototype “Bridget” from the International Space Station (ISS).

This experiment is part of the ESA METERON programme (Multi-Purpose End-To-End Robotic Operation Network) which is validating autonomous and real-time telerobotic operations from space to ground. The goal is to understand and develop the technologies needed for future space exploration missions, and look at how humans and robotics can work together.  To test various scenarios and to validate the related technologies, robots and rovers on Earth will be controlled from the ISS with haptic feedback and video footage.

This version of the experiment is investigating whether an astronaut can drive a rover in a dark cave environment.  In normal daylight conditions, the rovers currently under development in Stevenage have autonomous navigation; they can plot a route and drive themselves safely across the Martian surface.  In dark conditions, the rover software cannot tell the difference between a shadow and a rock and as the rover will be cut off from its source of solar power it will only have the limited time of its battery lift to investigate the cave interior. A human controlling the rover using images from the cameras, is easily able to distinguish between rocks and shadows, demonstrating that both autonomous and human navigation are both important for future space robotic missions.

MeteronTwiiterThe Mars yard is 30m by 13m and will be split in two using a partition to simulate the entrance to a cave, and the cave end will have very low light conditions. One rover prototype will navigate autonomously across the well-lit portion of the yard before stopping when it reaches the cave area, and then Tim Peake will then take control a second prototype, Bridget.

When Tim Peake drives Bridget there will be a delay before his instructions are carried out, a result of signals being relayed from the ISS to the Mars test area.  It is also expected there will be breaks in transmission as is often the case from the ISS as it orbits.  These conditions are the same as an astronaut in orbit around the Moon or Mars would have when remotely operating a rover.  The objective given to Tim Peake, which he is told about just before the experiment, is to enter the cave, find up to 3 targets marked with UV paint and exit the cave in 90 minutes.  For each target the rover must approach within 2 meters, centre the target in the camera view, mark map, and notify ground control.