The NASA Space Telerobotics Program

Note: the NASA Space Telerobotics Program was shut down in 1997, and the research and technology development task supported by the program were transferred to other efforts. This site is kept on line for historical purposes, and as a reference for the robotics community. It reflects the state of robotics technology as it was at the end of the program in 1997, and not the current NASA efforts in robotics technology and space system development.
The NASA Space Telerobotics Program is an element of NASA's ongoing research program, under the responsibility of the Office of Space Science. The program is designed to develop telerobotic capabilities for remote mobility and manipulation, by merging robotics and teleoperations and creating new telerobotics technologies.
Space robotics technology requirements can be characterized by the need for manual and automated control, non-repetitive tasks, time delay between operator and manipulator, flexible manipulators with complex dynamics, novel locomotion, operations in the space environment, and the ability to recover from unplanned events. To meet these needs, the program is focused on the following goal:
To develop, integrate and demonstrate the science and technology of remote manipulation such that by the year 2004, 50% of the EVA-required operations on orbit and on planetary surfaces may be conducted telerobotically.
The Space Telerobotics Program consists of a wide range of tasks from basic scientific research to applications developed to solve specific operations problems. The program is focused on three specific mission or application areas: on-orbit assembly and servicing, science payload tending, and planetary surface robotics. Within each of these areas, the program supports the development of robotic component technologies, development of complete robots, and implementation of complete robotic systems focussed on the specific mission needs. These three segments align with the application of space telerobotics to the class of missions identified by the potential space robotics user community. The objective of each of these program areas, from base technology development through systems applications, is to provide the technology for space telerobotics applications with sufficient validation that the designers of future spacecraft can apply the technology with confidence.