British Astronaut Tim Peake will get the chance to remotely control a rover stationed on Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) in an experiment that aims to prepare for future space missions.
On Friday, April 29, Peake will take control of the terrestrial rover Bridget from the ISS as part of experiments that seek to investigate how humans interact with robots and vehicles.
The ESA astronaut will remotely drive the rover over simulated Martian landscape in a hangar at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK.
Aboard the ISS, Peake will use a "delay-tolerant" network to connect to the Earth-based rover via video and data links.
This network, which serves as a sort of "Internet in space," is also part of the experiments and allows controllers to simulate connection losses, delays in command response and other disruptions that may likely occur in the future when an astronaut in orbit remotely operates a rover on an asteroid or Mars.
Peak will drive the rover into the dark while avoiding obstacles and identifying science targets marked by a fluorescent marker. The rover will be driven out of the shaded area once the astronaut identified and mapped the targets.
Jessica Grenouilleau, from ESA's Robotics and Future Projects Office, said that for the experiment, the astronaut would only be given basic training on how to react to situations that the robotic rover encounters since the experiment aims to study the interaction between humans and robotic systems.
Philippe Schoonejans, from ESA's Meteron project, explained the importance of the mission, citing that future space missions will entail humans collaborating with robots to make space explorations feasible.
Peake is set to take control the 154 kilograms (340 pounds) rover for about an hour and 30 minutes starting at 10:00 GMT (12:00 CEST). The astronaut already expressed his excitement over the experiment, tweeting he is already looking forward to operate Bridget from the ISS.
"Looking forward to giving rover Bridget in Stevenage, UK, a test-drive from space," Peake said.
The astronaut made an earlier feat this month, when he participated with 38,000 runners in the London Marathon while at the ISS.
