DESTINATION MARS: RESULT OF A KISS STUDY ON UNRAVELING THE BENEFITS OF EXPLORATION TELEPRESENCE

Space exploration is the practice of extraterrestrial human presence and understanding. It focuses on getting senses, dexterity, mobility, and perception to sites beyond Earth. Scientific research on planetary surfaces relies on human awareness and decision-making. The establishment of human presence electronically is a paradigm on which much of space science is based. In many respects, the sense of presence that gets established in that way is highly abbreviated or of poor quality, but it's enough to give scientists measurements that they don't have the opportunity of being there to collect. For space science in particular, the establishment of human presence is severely handicapped by the speed of light and the large distances over which robotic surrogates would be controlled. Robotic tools such as Curiosity on Mars transmit data to Earth, where scientists examine and interpret. However, the large transmission distances carry penalties: no opportunity for real-time scientific observation and interaction with the research target. The two-way radio latency from the Earth to the Moon is 2.6 seconds, 15 times that of the human reaction time. At more distant destinations, the delay is even more constraining: For Mars, the two-way radio latency is between 5 and 40 minutes. Astronauts who are nearby, but not necessarily on the surface, perhaps in orbit overhead, can teleoperate surface robotic surrogates with low control latency, a strategy referred to as exploration telepresence. The difficulty in landing and supporting humans in a gravity well makes this strategy of great interest. The workshop engaged three dozen planetary scientists, teleroboticists, and human space flight experts. The participants evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of low latency telerobotics for planetary science and concluded that, in view of its promise, the strategy of exploration telepresence deserves more careful attention and investment. This presentation will summarize the results.