2010 K10 Robot Field Test

Wow, it's hard to believe that three (very long!) weeks have come and gone. I'm so pleased by everything that we accomplished and learned from this year's K10 field test. We gained tremendous insight into robotic follow-up (many papers to come...), which will help NASA better plan future planetary exploration missions (both human and robotic). We also collected a lot of scientific data from Haughton Crater. And, we learned many valuable lessons about field testing in the Arctic...

Today, we remotely operated K10 mounted on top of the HMP "Mars 1" HMMWV to capture data for one of the experiments being run by the Lunar Surface Systems (LSS) office (NASA Johnson Space Center). Throughout the day, we moved the "simulated crew rover" to a variety of locations, which contained geologic features of different sizes. The ground control team at NASA Ames analyzed data from K10's GigaPan, terrain imager, and 3D scanning lidar to make scouting assessments of each feature. LSS will use information gained from this experiment to improve planning for future lunar missions.

During the past two weeks, IRG has been using the K10 robot to study robotic follow-up at Haughton Crater. Today, however, we're changing gears and geting ready to support a field experiment being conducted by the Lunar Surface Systems (LSS) office at the NASA Johnson Space Center. To do this, we are installing the K10 Red robot on to one of HMP's HMMWV's in order to simulate a robotically controlled crew vehicle.

During the past two weeks, we’ve been able to gather all the top priority science data requested by the science team. The science backroom at Ames is still busy analyzing all the data products that we uploaded from the field. Huge pats on everyone’s backs!!!!

by Tim Kennedy (NASA JSC Mission Operations Directorate)

We are at the end of this year’s field test for K-10. It has been a challenging week for the field team and the robot, as they have been beset by poor weather, intermittent communications and rocky terrain. In the end, however, the science and operations teams were able to work together and execute plans that gathered the additional context data required to enhance the science that was previously collected on simulated EVAs in the area.

by Elizabeth Palmer (Case Western Reserve University)

Martha and I sat side by side this week so I can definitely agree with her! Having worked on something really similar last summer — a week-long mock spacecraft mission creation with a bunch of interns — I would have to say the real deal is even more exciting. Sure, we had the swivel chairs and the big screen monitors, and the scientists did their best to drive the engineers up the wall with impossible demands... but here I got headsets! Oh, right, and some real data too.

by Martha Altobelli (University of Texas at Austin)

Woo NASA Ames! What an exciting place to work! As a part of the Science Operations Team for the K10 Robot Field Test at Haughton Crater, Canada, I have had the opportunity to do and see many things never available to me before. The atmosphere and people here are very conducive to an enjoyable and invigorating work environment, making work completion very clean and concise – two things I greatly appreciate. My experience here has set the bar very high for my future employer.