External robotics

The first external robotic element addressed at ESA was in 1986 the “Hermes Robotic Arm” (HERA) to be flown on the ESA’s Hermes spaceplane. When Hermes was discontinued, the arm was formally incorporated into the ISS Russian Segment in 1996 and re-named “European Robot Arm” (ERA).

In the course of the many years of development of ERA the A&R Section has supported the ERA Programme through all sort of engineering activities including hardware test campaigns (e..g. EMMI re-design, CLU tests)

In 1988 work on the “Bi-Arm Servicer” (BIAS) led to a concept and first experimental results of on teleoperated and programmed dual-arm manipulation of typical space hardware.

The 1999 endeavour in external robotics targeted the operation of a small technology facility called “European Technology Exposure Facility” (EuTEF). While EuTEF continued into phase C/D, unfortunately the robotics part was cancelled due to the withdrawal of the robot arm (which was a contribution of ASI).

The latest A&R system being developed since 2001 is the EUROBOT system.