- Title: ExoMars rover starts journey to Mars via France
- Date: 27th August 2019
- Summary: STEVENAGE, ENGLAND, UK (AUGUST 23, 2019) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PAUL MEACHAM, EXOMARS ROVER LEAD SYSTEMS ENGINEER, AIRBUS DEFENCE & SPACE SAYING: "The reason why we want to take samples from below the surface is because we think the top metre and a half is subject to radiation effectively, so we don’t think life would want to live in this layer. Instead it will be just below it so we've got a drill that can take samples from 2m below the surface and effectively capture them in its drill bit, bring them back up to the surface, deposit them into a little drawer that emerges from the front of the rover to be analysed onboard by all the analytical instruments that live inside the rover."
- Embargoed: 10th September 2019 16:26
- Keywords: ExoMars Rover Airbus Defence and Space European Space Agency ESA Mars
- Location: STEVENAGE, ENGLAND, UK
- City: STEVENAGE, ENGLAND, UK
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Science,Space Exploration
- Reuters ID: LVA005ATZTAAJ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: With less than a year before its launch, the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover has begun its journey to search for life on Mars, leaving the UK for final testing in France.
The rover, named the Rosalind Franklin after a British chemist who helped unravel the structure of DNA, will conduct a series of experiments on and under the surface or the red planet looking for signs of past or present life.
It will carry nine different instruments including a 2m long drill to take samples from below the surface where they will have been protected from the harsh radiation of the above ground environment.
"We think there could be organic molecules in this sort of layer of permafrost that's down there. So whereas the previous rovers have been the geologists we are very much the biologist," Paul Meacham, ExoMars rover lead engineer told Reuters.
ExoMars is a joint ESA program in cooperation with Russian Space Agency Roscosmos with contribution of NASA.
Europe's first rover has been designed and built by Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK in a super clean environment.
"We don't want to accidentally detect something we brought with us because someone rubbed up against the rover or sneezed on it or something like that. So it's really important our instruments don't get a false positive and all the processes and procedures we have in place are to avoid any sort of organic contamination travelling to Mars," Meacham said.
Once it lands the rover will roll off the descent module, navigating autonomously and relaying high resolution images back to Earth for scientists to decide its next task.
"It perceives its terrain, figures out where it can and can't go and drives itself to the target where the scientists will then take over and decide what science they want to do at that particular location," Meacham said.
It will take more than eight months to reach the Red Planet after its scheduled launch next July. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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