Analog rocks

Analog rocks I had the privilege to visit a temporary location of ESTEC, an organization within the European Space Agency (ESA). Here, parts of the Meteron project (Multi-Purpose End-To-End Robotic Operation Network) are tested. In November 2019, Luca Parmitano, commander of the International Space Station, controlled a rover in this hall from earth orbit. One of the challenges was steering the rover around “analog” (artificial) rocks. Another challenge was to pick up smaller samples of rock. For this test, real lava rocks were used.

The Italian magazine Erodoto108 published a 4-page article on these rocks in May 2020. Here you see my contribution.