  As human space exploration evolves toward longer voyages farther from our
home planet, in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) becomes increasingly
important. Haptic teleoperations are one of the technologies by which such
activities can be carried out remotely by humans, whose expertise is still
necessary for complex activities. In order to perform precision tasks with
effectiveness, the operator must experience ease of use and accuracy. The same
features are demanded to reduce the complexity of the training procedures and
the associated learning time for operators without a specific background in
robotic teleoperations. Haptic teleoperation systems, that allow for a natural
feeling of forces, need to cope with the trade-off between accurate movements
and workspace extension. Clearly, both of them are required for typical ISRU
tasks. In this work, we develop a new concept of operations and suitable
human-robot interfaces to achieve sample collection and assembly with ease of
use and accuracy. In the proposed operational concept, the teleoperation space
is extended by executing automated trajectories, offline planned at the control
station. In three different experimental scenarios, we validate the end-to-end
system involving the control station and the robotic asset, by assessing the
contribution of haptics to mission success, the system robustness to consistent
delays, and the ease of training new operators.
