New experiment could enable safer work in space
Working as an astronaut outside a space station involves significant risks; astronauts’ time is also limited and precious. On several occasions, astronauts have found themselves in life-threatening situations. One well-known serious incident occurred when astronaut Luca Parmitano’s helmet began to leak water during a spacewalk in 2013, an event that could have ended in disaster. At the same time, the need for inspections, repairs and maintenance of space infrastructure is growing, and researchers at KTH have now demonstrated that space robots can carry out this work.
Researchers at the Space Robotics Laboratory at KTH, in collaboration with Seoul National University (SNU), have successfully demonstrated that a space robot can be teleoperated over very long distances, despite time delays and communication interference. In a demonstration, the researchers successfully controlled a robot in Stockholm in real time from Seoul, 7,000 kilometres away. This was made possible by a KTH spin-out company, FleetMQ, which provides a communication platform for real-time data exchange between distributed robotic systems over long distances. The project has been funded, among others, by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) and began in January 2025.
“This is an important step towards using ground-based operators for complex space missions. Instead of exposing astronauts to danger, robots can be sent out to carry out tasks such as repairs,” says Gregorio Marchesini, a PhD student at the Department of Decision and Control Systems at KTH.
The experiment was carried out using the ATMOS free-flyer, an open and modular robot platform developed at KTH through the WASP project DISCOWER. The robot, which was developed to test spacecraft control and navigation, moves frictionlessly on a flat floor, thereby mimicking the unamortised movements experienced in microgravity. The facility, which was built around three years ago, is today one of the few of its kind in the world and unique in that it is openly published .
“It is a specialised research infrastructure that is unique, and the collaboration with Seoul National University is extremely valuable,” says Elias Krantz, a PhD student in Aerospace Engineering at KTH.
One of the biggest challenges in teleoperating robots in space is communication delays. Signals between Earth and space can be affected by distance, network congestion and temporary interruptions. This means that commands from a human operator may not always reach the robot immediately, and the robot's feedback may be delayed. In the demonstration , the researchers developed a control strategy that accounts for these uncertainties. The robot anticipates how the situation might develop and adapts its behaviour to function stably even when communication is intermittent. This work will be presented at the upcoming 23rd International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) World Congress in the Republic of Korea.
“We are demonstrating that it is possible to test scenarios like these using real hardware, not just simulation, which is crucial for actually understanding what works in practice,” says Gregorio Marchesini.
The applications the researchers envisage are numerous: transporting equipment and inspecting structures on space stations, repairs and maintenance, and, in the long term, entirely new types of service robots in orbit.
”The need for teleoperation is clear. Many tasks have to be performed repeatedly, and every spacewalk involves significant risks. With robots, we can drastically increase safety,” says Gregorio Marchesini.
The researchers emphasise that the experiment is not the end goal, but the start of a broader line of research. The next step involves, among other things, reducing the need for continuous communication,making the systems even more robust against interference, and enabling coordination among multiple robots for complex missions.
“Our vision is to create reliable methods for testing and validating space robotics here on Earth. This is how we pave the way for safer, more sustainable and more cost-effective space missions in the future,” says Mani Dhullipalla, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Decision and Control Systems at KTH.
Text: Emelie Smedslund ( emeliesm@kth.se )