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Team Tumbleweed recently visited ESA’s European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT), at Harwell Campus, as part of our quarterly Strategy Weekend meeting held in Reading, United Kingdom.
Spaceship ECSAT is one of the three ESA Spaceships located across Europe. Spaceships are cross-functional teams that play a key role in supporting the agency’s exploration activities. Spaceship ECSAT is focused on robotics, virtual and augmented reality, and the development of systems to assist astronauts.
Led by Romain Charles, Spaceship ECSAT Coordinator, our crew toured ESA ECSAT’s Vulcan Facility, where scientists and engineers research technologies that will enable a long-term human and robotic presence in deep space. Vulcan is also home to a collection of samples that simulate rock and dust found on the Moon and Mars.
Julian Rothenbuchner, Team Tumbleweed’s Founder and Co-CEO, presented the organization’s next-generation, bio-inspired Mars rovers and our swarm-based mission concept to the Spaceship ECSAT team.
“Team Tumbleweed offers an entirely new approach to Mars exploration,” said Romain Charles. “This is a first step in what we expect to be a future of ongoing collaboration between ESA’s Spaceship ECSAT and Team Tumbleweed,” he added.
“We are impressed by the work that ESA ECSAT does and we are looking forward to deepening this partnership. We have been supported by ESA’s Business Incubator Centre in Austria, and we see ESA as a strategic partner for us to reach Mars by 2030.” said Julian Rothenbuchner. “Team Tumbleweed will play a key role in Europe’s future on the Red Planet, and we believe there’s strong potential for our missions to help ESA achieve its Terrae Novae 2030+ strategic roadmap,” he added.
“Tumbleweed rovers will enable a wide variety of scientific use cases which align perfectly with Spaceship ECSAT’s goals,” highlighted Onė Mikulskytė, Co-CEO and Science and Organization Lead at Team Tumbleweed. “By offering a unique, low-cost, and scalable solution to Mars exploration, we aim to open access to deep space to space agencies, researchers, and commercial players worldwide.”
About ESA ECSAT:
ESA’s European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT), located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in the UK, is the headquarters of ESA’s Directorate of Connectivity and Secure Communications. It also supports teams working in commercialisation, Earth observation, human and robotic exploration, and space technology, engineering and quality.
About Team Tumbleweed:
Team Tumbleweed is a pioneering deep space organization providing research infrastructure on Mars at a fraction of the cost of other missions, through an innovative, swarm-based mission concept. With more than 60 team members worldwide, the organization is building bio-inspired, wind-driven, and low-cost rovers to open up access to the Red Planet.
For further information, please contact office@teamtumbleweed.eu.