Simulating Remote Mars Rover Operations in the Atacama Desert for Future ESA Missions

This paper reports on select operations and autonomy aspects of a recent ESA study called SAFER. The study sought to investigate operations strategies for a surface mission such as ExoMars Rover. In order to help prepare for ESA’s first mobile robotic mission on Mars SAFER investigated aspects of the proposed operations strategy in a representative environment. An early ExoMars Rover chassis prototype equipped with several ExoMars payload instrument breadboards was located in the Atacama Desert in Chile with a remote operations and science team situated in the UK to simulate operations over a one week period. The rover system was equipped with full on-board navigation autonomy and partially automated instrument operations. Through-out the course of the week the science and operations team explored a pre-selected region of interest using the rover and payload instruments. This paper presents the results of the field trial from an operations tools perspective and comments on the role of autonomy in such a mission.