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30th March 2014, 15:11
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March 2014 Last updated at 13:08 Share this pageEmail Print Share this page
'Mars yard' to test European rover
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
3SQ4UTqepgg
Richard Lancaster gives the BBC a guided tour of Stevenage's own indoor version of the Red Planet
Airbus has built a giant sand pit in Stevenage to mimic the surface of Mars.
The indoor terrain, about the size of a basketball court, will be used to test systems on the rover that Europe will send to the Red Planet in 2018.
ExoMars, as it is known, will be a six-wheeled robot tasked with finding signs of past or present life.
The UK division of Airbus Defence and Space will assemble the rover from parts built across member states of the European Space Agency (Esa).
But it has the specific role also of developing the vehicle's autonomous navigation system.
The great distance between Earth and Mars means the robot cannot be controlled in real time; commands take tens of minutes to cross the space between the planets.
Instead, ExoMars will be given a destination to reach, and its onboard cameras and computer will then work out the most appropriate route, avoiding large boulders and potential fissures in the ground.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70435000/jpg/_70435067_70435066.jpg
Euro-Russian mission to Mars
ExoMars rover set for launch in May 2018
Proton rocket will send it on its way
Russians also building landing system
Touchdown should occur in January 2019
Rover will look for biosignatures on Mars
Initial mission duration will be 218 Mars days
The new "Mars yard" is being used to develop the necessary algorithms.
"We need to verify the performance, to check that the algorithms and the processes
that we're using will actually work - will be fit for purpose to deal with the conditions
and obstacles we expect to find on Mars," said Dr Ralph Cordey from Airbus.
The sand pit will play a critical role also in testing the rover's drive systems.
Like previous vehicles sent to the Red Planet, ExoMars will be based on a free-moving,
rocker-bogie suspension that allows it to climb over small rocks.This equipment will be
provided by robotics experts at MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates in Canada (Canada
is a co-operating member state of Esa). Various prototypes already at Stevenage have
been trying out the new "Marscape".
The lessons learned will be built into the eventual "flight" model - the actual vehicle that
is sent to Mars.
This itself will never see the Mars yard. It will be assembled in a new "cleanroom" at the
Airbus factory to ensure it is kept spotless, and free from any Earthly contamination
that could confuse its instruments when they go hunting "biosignatures" on Mars.
Once Airbus has assembled the flight model, it will be sent to Thales Alenia Space in
Turin, Italy, where its payload of scientific instruments will be added.The key UK science
contribution is the PanCam imaging system developed by a team under the leadership
of Prof Andrew Coates at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory.The current US rover,
Curiosity, has wowed us with its pictures from Gale Crater. ExoMars hopes to do the
same.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73854000/jpg/_73854344_cable.jpg
Vince Cable and David Parker Business Secretary Vince Cable MP (L) said space had a
big inspiration factor "Curiosity can see a lot, but PanCam will be able to see a much
larger region in its field of view," Prof Coates explained.
"It can also zoom in and view sections in great detail with our high-resolution camera.
With that we'll be able to narrow down where to drill to search for signs of life."
Precisely where on the Red Planet ExoMars will go has yet to be decided.
The project is holding its first landing-site selection meeting this week in Madrid, Spain,
but it will be 2017 before a final choice is made.
Another outstanding matter is ExoMars' budget. Esa has capped the project at 1.2bn
euros. This sum covers both an atmospheric-research and telecommunications satellite
as well as the rover itself.Esa member states have yet to commit all of the money that
will be needed, but the agency's science director, Alvaro Gimenez, said the gap - of
roughly 165m euros - should be closed very soon.
"Yes, there is a gap. It's less than 15%, but we need to close it, and the sooner the
better, and we expect to do that before the end of the year," he predicted.
The Mars Yard was officially opened by Business Secretary Vince Cable. He said projects
such as ExoMars fitted with the government's campaign to get more young people
pursuing technical subjects at university.
"We are massively undersupplied in the UK with STEM graduates, and I think the
excitement generated by space as an industry provides a lot of energy behind that
campaign," he told reporters.
Landing sites Esa has just published its "longlist" of potential destinations for ExoMars
"Brian" prototype
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73818000/jpg/_73818426_mars_landing_map_624.jpg
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73705000/jpg/_73705259_brian.jpg
Rover prototypes are already being put through their paces in the
Mars yard
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26670054
March 2014 Last updated at 13:08 Share this pageEmail Print Share this page
'Mars yard' to test European rover
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
3SQ4UTqepgg
Richard Lancaster gives the BBC a guided tour of Stevenage's own indoor version of the Red Planet
Airbus has built a giant sand pit in Stevenage to mimic the surface of Mars.
The indoor terrain, about the size of a basketball court, will be used to test systems on the rover that Europe will send to the Red Planet in 2018.
ExoMars, as it is known, will be a six-wheeled robot tasked with finding signs of past or present life.
The UK division of Airbus Defence and Space will assemble the rover from parts built across member states of the European Space Agency (Esa).
But it has the specific role also of developing the vehicle's autonomous navigation system.
The great distance between Earth and Mars means the robot cannot be controlled in real time; commands take tens of minutes to cross the space between the planets.
Instead, ExoMars will be given a destination to reach, and its onboard cameras and computer will then work out the most appropriate route, avoiding large boulders and potential fissures in the ground.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70435000/jpg/_70435067_70435066.jpg
Euro-Russian mission to Mars
ExoMars rover set for launch in May 2018
Proton rocket will send it on its way
Russians also building landing system
Touchdown should occur in January 2019
Rover will look for biosignatures on Mars
Initial mission duration will be 218 Mars days
The new "Mars yard" is being used to develop the necessary algorithms.
"We need to verify the performance, to check that the algorithms and the processes
that we're using will actually work - will be fit for purpose to deal with the conditions
and obstacles we expect to find on Mars," said Dr Ralph Cordey from Airbus.
The sand pit will play a critical role also in testing the rover's drive systems.
Like previous vehicles sent to the Red Planet, ExoMars will be based on a free-moving,
rocker-bogie suspension that allows it to climb over small rocks.This equipment will be
provided by robotics experts at MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates in Canada (Canada
is a co-operating member state of Esa). Various prototypes already at Stevenage have
been trying out the new "Marscape".
The lessons learned will be built into the eventual "flight" model - the actual vehicle that
is sent to Mars.
This itself will never see the Mars yard. It will be assembled in a new "cleanroom" at the
Airbus factory to ensure it is kept spotless, and free from any Earthly contamination
that could confuse its instruments when they go hunting "biosignatures" on Mars.
Once Airbus has assembled the flight model, it will be sent to Thales Alenia Space in
Turin, Italy, where its payload of scientific instruments will be added.The key UK science
contribution is the PanCam imaging system developed by a team under the leadership
of Prof Andrew Coates at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory.The current US rover,
Curiosity, has wowed us with its pictures from Gale Crater. ExoMars hopes to do the
same.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73854000/jpg/_73854344_cable.jpg
Vince Cable and David Parker Business Secretary Vince Cable MP (L) said space had a
big inspiration factor "Curiosity can see a lot, but PanCam will be able to see a much
larger region in its field of view," Prof Coates explained.
"It can also zoom in and view sections in great detail with our high-resolution camera.
With that we'll be able to narrow down where to drill to search for signs of life."
Precisely where on the Red Planet ExoMars will go has yet to be decided.
The project is holding its first landing-site selection meeting this week in Madrid, Spain,
but it will be 2017 before a final choice is made.
Another outstanding matter is ExoMars' budget. Esa has capped the project at 1.2bn
euros. This sum covers both an atmospheric-research and telecommunications satellite
as well as the rover itself.Esa member states have yet to commit all of the money that
will be needed, but the agency's science director, Alvaro Gimenez, said the gap - of
roughly 165m euros - should be closed very soon.
"Yes, there is a gap. It's less than 15%, but we need to close it, and the sooner the
better, and we expect to do that before the end of the year," he predicted.
The Mars Yard was officially opened by Business Secretary Vince Cable. He said projects
such as ExoMars fitted with the government's campaign to get more young people
pursuing technical subjects at university.
"We are massively undersupplied in the UK with STEM graduates, and I think the
excitement generated by space as an industry provides a lot of energy behind that
campaign," he told reporters.
Landing sites Esa has just published its "longlist" of potential destinations for ExoMars
"Brian" prototype
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73818000/jpg/_73818426_mars_landing_map_624.jpg
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73705000/jpg/_73705259_brian.jpg
Rover prototypes are already being put through their paces in the
Mars yard
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26670054