Tim Peake drives remote robot on Earth from orbit

UK astronaut Tim Peake has performed a challenging remote control experiment on the International Space Station.

He had to command a robot rover on Earth, driving it across a big sandpit in Stevenage, near London, that simulated the surface of Mars.
The Briton experienced some software glitches, but achieved his objectives.
These involved finding a series of painted targets in a darkened room that had been set up to represent a cave on the Red Planet.
It was all part of a European Space Agency (Esa) project which aims to learn how astronauts can control remote systems on other worlds.

Known as Meteron (Multi-Purpose End-To-End Robotic Operation Network), the programme has already seen Danish ISS crewman Andreas Mogensen get a robot on Earth to precisely place some pegs in a set of holes.
But Major Tim's job, which got under way at 15:00 BST (14:00 GMT), took things up a notch in terms of complexity. read more