Andreas in orbit

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen aboard the International Space Station controlling the Interact Rover at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre, during an afternoon of experiments on 7 September 2015. Andreas was tasked with using the rover to place a metal peg into a hole with just 0.15 mm of clearance. Andreas used a force-feedback control system developed at ESA, letting him feel for himself whenever the rover’s flexible arm met resistance. The real challenge was achieving meaningful force feedback despite the distance the signals had to travel: from the Station, hurtling around Earth at 8 km/s, up to satellites almost 36 000 km high and then down to a US ground station in New Mexico, via NASA Houston and then through a transatlantic cable to ESTEC – and back. It added up to a round-trip of more than 144 000 km.