The aim of the project "SpaceClimber" is the development of a biologically inspired, energy-efficient, and adaptively free-climbing robot to provide mobility in steep and unstructured terrain.

Regions, such as rock fields, which require highly mobile systems in order to carry out in-situ examinations, typically belong from a scientific point of view to the most fascinating places on moon and mars. Their attraction is only topped by crater and canyon walls which are even more difficult to explore.

In the "SpaceClimber" project a six-legged robot was developed which has to prove that legged systems present a very suitable solution to future extraterrestrial surface exploration missions in unstructured, uneven terrain, in particular in lunar craters. The robot system to be developed is expected to be able to safely control up to 80 percent non-uniform grades.

The talk will give a brief overview about the goals of the SpaceClimber project and the resulting requirements to the system that had to be developed. Afterwards we will describe the final system and introduce the locomotion control approach. Finally the current state of the system performance evaluation and further plans for locomotion control optimization will be presented.