Preparing Mission Operators for Lunar and Mars Exploration

Future European planetary missions will include rovers to explore the surface of Mars. Mission operators will need to be trained to operat e the rovers and to cope with various problems that could possibly occur during the missi on. Operator training can be done using full scale mock-ups of the rover, Martian terrain a nd communications system once a complete rover is available. Training for fault rec overy can be difficult on a real system as introducing the fault can be difficult. Another com plementary method of operator training is to use a simulation of the rover and the planetary surface over which it is moving. It is then relatively easy to introduce faults into the simula tion. The University of Dundee has developed a realistic planetary surface simulation facility for use in developing vision-based navigation systems for planetary landers. This pape r describes the potential use of that simulation facility for training future planetary r over operators.