In the event, Frank accomplished all the tasks in time, while also giving the team valuable feedback on features of the user interface and the robots. Those will be implemented and validated in the next session of Surface Avatar in January 2024.

This first test opens the way to a follow-up Surface Avatar test with a larger team of robots, planned to be undertaken by Danish ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen during his Huginn mission later this year.

The distances involved in spaceflight make it impractical to perform direct remote control of robots on the Moon or other planetary surfaces from Earth. Instead, the idea is to have astronauts in orbit control these robots – to explore and take action on the Moon, then later other alien environments, without the cost and risk of landing.