ESA Mars rover programme makes significant advance with tests of duplicate unit

7th June 2021

By: Rebecca Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

Font size: - +

The European Space Agency (ESA) has reported that its duplicate ExoMars rover is now fully assembled and has started test and training operations at the Mars Terrain Simulator, which is hosted by Italy’s Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company, in Turin. This is in preparation for the actual ExoMars lander/rover mission, which will launch in late 2022 and is scheduled to land on the Red Planet in June 2023. (ESA is quite separate from the European Union.)

ExoMars is a two-stage programme. The first stage, ExoMars 2016, saw an orbiter launched in March 2016 and entering Mars orbit in October 2016. The orbiter is a joint project with Russian space agency Roscosmos and has a primary mission of detecting trace gases in the Martian atmosphere, particularly those that might be linked to active biological and geological processes on the planet. It also helps provide data relay support to US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) probes on the Martian surface and will do the same for second stage (ExoMars 2022) of the programme, for the lander and rover.

The ExoMars 2022 is also a joint ESA and Roscosmos mission. ESA will supply the rover, which will be the agency’s first such vehicle, while Roscosmos will provide the lander, named Kazachok, which will be a science platform in its own right, and not just a means to place the rover on the Martian surface.

The ESA rover will be named the Rosalind Franklin, in honour of the British physical chemist, who, using X-ray diffraction, played a critical role in determining the structure of DNA. (Franklin died from ovarian cancer in 1958 at the age of 37 and it was decades before the scale of her contribution was widely recognised.) The fundamental mission of the Rosalind Franklin will be to try and determine whether life ever existed on Mars. To this end, it will be able to drill for samples as deep as 2 m under the surface, and examine them, especially any organic compounds that might be found. Nasa is supplying some of the technology that will be used in this endeavour.

The Earth-bound duplicate rover is simply called the Ground Test Model (GTM). To make the tests and operator training as realistic as possible, given that Mars has only 33% of the gravity of Earth, the GTM is attached to a test-area-ceiling-mounted Rover Unloading Device, which absorbs 66% of the vehicle’s total mass of 290 kg.

The GTM will be used to safely rehearse on Earth the activities that the Rosalind Franklin will later carry out on Mars. The first tests have been simple driving activities, using the different surfaces provided by the Mars Terrain Simulator. These include boulder-strewn ground, a small hill and a side slope. When the GTM reached the top of the hill, it was instructed to take a panoramic image sequence.

But the tests will become more complicated during the coming months. “For example, while the first driving test was executed by following direct drive commands, upcoming is a trajectory control test: that is, the rover will automatically correct deviations induced by the topography and roughness of the terrain to stay within 20 cm of the commanded path,” explained ESA. “Later, more advanced autonomous driving functions will be tested whereby the rover will use onboard computing capabilities to assess the safety of the terrain on its own. The GTM will also be used in the coming weeks for drilling activities.”

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION