{"id":2338,"date":"2025-12-22T13:03:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T13:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/2025\/12\/22\/gripping-the-future-students-test-gecko-inspired-robotic-arm-in-esas-orbital-robotics-lab\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T13:03:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T13:03:00","slug":"gripping-the-future-students-test-gecko-inspired-robotic-arm-in-esas-orbital-robotics-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/2025\/12\/22\/gripping-the-future-students-test-gecko-inspired-robotic-arm-in-esas-orbital-robotics-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Gripping the Future: Students Test Gecko-Inspired Robotic Arm in ESA\u2019s Orbital Robotics Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2025\/12\/team_grasp_integrating_their_gecko-inspired_gripper\/27054442-2-eng-GB\/Team_GRASP_integrating_their_gecko-inspired_gripper_card_full.jpg\" alt=\"Team GRASP integrating their gecko-inspired gripper on the air-bearing platform on the right, with the platform carrying the target object on the left.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As part of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Education\/ESA_Academy_Experiments_programme\/About_the_ESA_Academy_Experiments_programme\" target=\"_blank\">ESA Academy Experiments\u00a0programme<\/a>, the GRASP student team from Sapienza University of Rome tested a robotic arm fitted with a gecko-inspired adhesive gripper under microgravity-like conditions. The test campaign took place in November 2025 at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Education\/ESA_Academy_Experiments_programme\/Orbital_Robotics_Lab\" target=\"_blank\">ESA ESTEC\u2019s Orbital Robotics Lab<\/a>. The experiment aims to advance technologies for active debris removal and spacecraft docking operations.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the\u00a0ESA Academy Experiments\u00a0programme, the GRASP student team from Sapienza University of Rome tested a robotic arm fitted with a gecko-inspired adhesive gripper under microgravity-like conditions. The test campaign took place in November 2025 at\u00a0ESA ESTEC\u2019s Orbital Robotics Lab. The experiment aims to advance technologies for active debris removal and spacecraft docking operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}