Posted on 08/27/2019 7:15:40 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Called "Rosalind Franklin" after the British DNA pioneer, the six-wheeled robot will search for life on Mars.
It has a drill to burrow 2m below ground to try to detect the presence of microbes, either living or fossilised.
The project is a joint endeavour of the European and Russian space agencies, with input from the Canadians and the US.
Although the rover's build took just nine months, development work at component and instrument level has consumed more than a decade (the initial feasibility study was started in 2004).
Lift-off atop a Proton rocket is scheduled for July 2020. It is an eight-month cruise to Mars, with the landing on an ancient equatorial plain targeted for 19 March, 2021, around 0600 local Mars time.
China's vehicle, dubbed XH-1, is a slightly smaller concept. The Americans are assembling a near-copy of the one-tonne Curiosity robot that has been investigating the Red Planet for the past seven years. Their machine is codenamed currently simply Mars 2020.
There are actually three outstanding items yet to be integrated on the rover.
These are the radioisotope heaters that will keep the vehicle warm in the bitter conditions on Mars. But they are a Russian expertise and will not be inserted until just prior to blast-off.
In parallel with the work on the rover, engineers in Italy at the Thales Alenia Space (TAS) company are preparing the mechanisms required to get the rover safely to, and on to, Mars.
In Turin on Wednesday, the German cruise spacecraft that will shepherd the robot to the Red Planet, and the Russian descent module, which will protect it as it enters Mars' atmosphere, will have their first fit-check.
Eventually, all elements of the mission will meet in Cannes, at another TAS factory, for end-to-end mating and balancing
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
the six-wheeled robot will search for life on Mars.
It has a drill to burrow...
WAIT FOR IT...
It’s a good thing they’re not drilling on Uranus.
Rosalyn Franklin ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
It’s not but my horrific immaturity left me no choice but to type it :)
Lol
*ping*
Forget the Rosalind Franklin, I want my Cherry 2000. I just need a part or two.
Forget Rosalind Franklin ? Her research in DNA structure got on Watson & Crick the Nobel Prize. She conveniently died before those two were given the credit. They did not even give her any credit, the schmucks. Little off topic but it gets to me.
Nettie Stevens was another overlooked pioneer.
Look out for the Martian defenses, of the 45 attempts to ‘probe’ Mars since 1960, only 22 have succeeded. Obviously the record is FAR BETTER for the most recent missions but the Russia/SovietUnion record is a dismal 3 successes out of 18 tries!
Probably the worst known incident of the overall Mars attempts was the infamous Mars Climate Orbiter (November 1999) which had a confusion of using both metric AND imperial units. Spacecraft came in too close to the Mars atmosphere and burned up. Lots of red faces at Lockheed, JPL & NASA!
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