The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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As engineer Manuel Aiple moves his gauntleted hand, the robotic hand a few metres away in ESA’s telerobotics laboratory follows in sync.
In future, the hope is that human controllers can manipulate orbiting robots or planetary rovers in a similar fashion, across hundreds or thousands of kilometres of space.
Based at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, the lab aims for robot operators to feel as though they are right there – up in orbit or down on a planet.
Stereo cameras offer 3D vision and the operator feels force-feedback, as found in high-end video game joysticks, to gain a working sense of touch as the robot manipulates objects.
This summer, ESA’s latest ATV space freighter will deliver the Lab’s Haptics-1 experiment to the International Space Station, testing how feedback operates in microgravity, as a prelude to demonstrating orbit-to-ground telerobotic control.