Robots and lasers in space: Photos of tech headed to the cosmos

Shadow Hand

Fancy controlling a robot hand in space? ESA is sourcing technologies to allow humans to control distant robotic limbs as if they were part of their body.

Shadow Hand reproduces the motion of its human operator and incorporates a force-feedback sense of touch and pressure to allow  it to precisely grip and manipulate objects.

Image: ESA

Telerobotics exoskeleton

In a similar vein to Shadow Hand, this lightweight, 10kg, exoskeleton allows the wearer to control a robot. The users' actions can be transmitted more than 400km to a robotic arm, which will replicate the wearer's movements.

Image: ESA-A. Le Floc'h

Picasso CubeSat

Tiny cubesats can make it into orbit at a fraction of $500m it can cost to put a large satellite in space.

Just 30x10x10 cm in size, the PICosatellite for Atmospheric and Space Science Observations (Picasso) cubesat will investigate the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere.

Picasso will measure the distribution of ozone in the stratosphere and profile the temperature of the mesosphere and the electron density in the ionosphere.

When it launches next year, Picasso will be part of a network of 50 cubesats probing largely unexplored layers of Earth's atmosphere.

Image: BISA

​Laser communication terminal

This terminal will help transmit data between spacecraft and satellites in different orbits.

It will be part of the European Data Relay System, a planned constellation of satellites that will sit in geosynchronous orbit and allow near-continuous communications between orbiting craft and ground stations.

The terminals are capable of transmitting 1.8 Gbit/s of data between between lower orbits and geostationary orbit.

Image: DLR/TESAT

Brought together by lasers

The ESA's space freighter ATV Georges Lemaître tests new rendezvous sensors as it approaches the International Space Station.

The Laser Infrared Imaging Sensors (LIRIS) being tested are a step towards a system that could allow future spacecraft to dock with or land on 'uncooperative' targets, such as orbiting debris or a Mars sample capsule.

On future missions, infrared cameras and lidar sensors - the light equivalent of radar - would scan the targets while onboard computers processed the data using new guidance navigation and control software.

At 30 km from the target, infrared cameras would be used before lidar took over from 3.5 km out to allow docking.

Image: ESA/NASA/Roscosmos-O. Artemyev

Reaching across space

Helping ESA to develop a feel for how astronauts should remote control robots is this Haptics-1 experiment.

ESA wants a better idea of how much force is necessary when controlling bots carrying out delicate tasks on planet surfaces or outside spaceships, such as picking up rock samples or installing equipment.

During his 10-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS), ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will use this force-feedback joystick in tests that will analyse the effects on human motor control when exposed to long-term weightlessness, and how feedback feels in orbit.

Image: ESA-J. Harrod

Hunting for flaws

Embedded in these resin discs are clues as to whether future space missions will succeed or fail.

These are micro-sections taken from printed circuit boards (PCBs), being considered for use in planned ESA projects.

Defects in the PCBs, or in the soldering process used to attach components, could impair satellites, or even lead to the total loss of a mission.

ESA's Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory - based at the ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands - inspect the discs using powerful diagnostic tools, including optical and scanning electron microscopes capable of magnifying at hundreds-of-thousands scale.

Image: ESA-Sergi Ferreté Aymerich Id 329387

Through the astronaut's eyes

This headset should allow mission control to look over an astronaut's shoulder.

Seen here on ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, the headset can stream live video to mission control so they can guide astronauts through the many tasks they perform on board the International Space Station, where they are charged with research, maintenance and grabbling spacecraft with robotic arms.

Image: ESA-J. Harrod

Eye-tracking device

There is still much we don't know about how low-gravity environments affect humans.

This eye-tracking device was used in experiments to help answer questions such as 'how do astronauts in space cope when the inner ear can no longer rely on gravity?'.

The helmet fed data to high-performance image-processing chips similar to those found in consumer cameras.

Image: ESA/NASA

New ways to build

3D printing offers engineers ways to create objects that could not be built in any other way.

This single-piece casing for an optical instrument for Earth observations is an example of the extremely complicated shapes can be manufactured without the need for joins or welds. For certain objects, 3D printing can also use less raw material and energy than traditional manufacturing, and require a reduced number of steps.

ESA's product assurance & safety department is looking at how 3D printing can be applied to space missions

Image: ESA-Anneke Le Floc'h

Buzz Aldrin gets to grips with robotics

Pioneering moonwalker Buzz Aldrin inspects a telerobotic arm, which was later used to allow a TV presenter in the UK to shake hands with a colleague 450km away at ESA's technical base in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

ESA is engaged in ongoing efforts to develop telerobotic force-feedback to enable precision control of robots in space and, eventually, manipulation of rovers on planets by astronauts in orbit.

Image: ESA

Testing lasers

A bench at ESA's Opto-Electronics Laboratory in the Netherlands, where the space agency tests the lasers it uses in missions.

ESA uses lasers for a wide range of tasks in space, including remote sensing, communications and interferometry.

Image:ESA-A. Le Floc'h

​Science in space

A long exposure photo of ESA's space laboratory Columbus - part of the International Space Station.

Image: ESA/NASA