At the beginning of April the Bozar Cultural Centre in Brussels hosted the third workshop of the PERASPERA program (Plan the European Roadmap and its Activities for Space Exploitation of Robotics and Autonomy).

Representatives from the government, industry and academia met up to speak about the second phase (call 2019-2021), containing the space robotics technologies roadmap within the H2020 R&D program. Its aim is to integrate the previously prepared common building blocks into on-ground demonstrators, working towards applications of space robotics in the field of orbital and planetary use.

At the event GMV took part in several presentations and panel discussions, dealing not only with this second phase of the program but also the first (call 2016-2019), which has just ended. GMV thus presented the results and achievements of the robotic technology building blocks it is leading (ESROCOS, ERGO and FACILITATORS). These three form part of the six making up the first call of the Strategic Research Cluster (SRC), which has laid down the bases of the space robotics technologies designed for in-orbit servicing and planetary exploration missions.

During the workshop GMV also set out the purpose, technical goals and current state of the ADE project (Autonomous Decision Making in Very Long Traverses), which it is leading in this second phase of the SRC. The company is also participating in 3 more projects of the 5 selected by the European Commission: European Robotic Orbital Support Services (EROSS), Modular Spacecraft Assembly and Reconfiguration (MOSAR) and Planetary Robots Deployed for Assembly and Construction Tasks (PRO-ACT).

Within the SRC cluster the PERASPERA project is one of the two Horizon 2020 PSA (Programme Support Activity) programs formed by the various European agencies for drawing up the roadmap of the space-robotics cluster. H2020 is an R&D program falling within the EU's space-sector industrial leadership goals.