🚀 go-pugleaf

>Ron Baalke writes (about Dante's expedition to Mt. Erebus):
>> 	However, portions of the robot exploration will be 
>> controlled from a payload control center at Goddard.  This will 
>> be the longest distance ever for live robotic control and 
>> simulates what may be in store for NASA's further exploration 
>> activities with humans and robots on Mars.  
>
Nathan Ulrich writes:
>I wonder how they define the distance for live robotic control?  I'm kind of  
>surprised that NASA hasn't teleoperated anything in orbit from the ground  
>yet... or do they include the satellite bounce distance?  If they do, then I  
>guess Woods Hole would actually hold the record:  we've done quite a bit of  
>remote flying of underwater ROVs from remote sites: via 10,000 meters of fiber  
>optic tether, two satellite bounces and a few hundred miles of fiber-optic land  
>line.

I wonder how they define "live robotic control"? What are they actually
controlling from Goddard?

Robotic spacecraft (ie. Voyager) have been
controlled/reprogrammed from earth. I think this would win the prize
for the greatest distance for remote control of any kind.

The Soviets had an lunar vehicle called "Lunikod" ( or something
like that) which was controlled remotely from earth. 

In the Robotic Systems Evaluation Lab at NASA-JSC, a robotic manipulator
was controlled through a TDRS satellite link from Houston to 
White Sands and back. This commands traveled from an operator in Houston,
up to a satellite, down to White Sands, back up to a satellite, and then
down to the robot in Houston. Feedback from the manipulator took the same
route. This was an experiment to evaluate the time delay that would be
involved in the ground control of robotic maintanence tasks for Space Station
Freedom.

But enough of that ...

I am sure that we will learn alot from the Erebus expedition, and look
forward to more news to come. Good luck to those on the ice!

-- 

**************************************************************
* Philip Lee Graves    * graves@arabia.jsc.nasa.gov          *
* Lockheed-ESC         * graves%lock.dnet@aio.jsc.nasa.gov   *