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A British building Mars Rover has stuck on earth since the start of the war in Ukraine soon on the way after the British space agency agreed to pay for the drive to the red planet.
The European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin Rover was supposed to end up on Mars in 2023.
But the rocket -driven system designed to transport the fragile Rover to the planet’s surface is built under contract Russia‘S space agency roscosmos.
To the invasion of UkraineESA canceled the contract and left the Rosalind Rover, designed to search for signs of the previous life Marsstranded.
The £ 150m contract from the British Space Agency for Bus To replace the Russian landing system, put the mission back on track.
“We can unlock some of the most important questions that humanity asks of itself,” said Peter KyleState Secretary for Science.
“If we could do it and take advantage of some of the results and the innovation that would flow from it, I think it is a good investment for Britain.”
Peter Kyle
This is good news for the Rosalind Rover – a central part of the ESA Exomars program – because it was one of the most delayed and disrupted missions in the history of space.
Early plans launched it in 2018.
But NasaOriginally a partner in the business, moved out due to funding restrictions, making ESA member states out of the deficit.
The completion of the Lander was subsequently delayed by Covid Restrictions, then essentially based when Russia started out of the project.
‘Scary but exciting’
Built by Airbus UK at its facility in HertfordshireIt looked like Stevenage was as close to Mars for a while as the Rosalind Rover was going to get.
Now Airbus has the contract to build the land for the Rover as well.
It is a boost for the British spaces sector, but a bad one.
The company has only three years to complete the project and not Airbus, and the UK has previously built an drive system to land on another planet.
Even more stressful, the fact that 60% of the Mars missions end with failure, much in the important landing phase.
Europe’s last Mars Lander – a mission called Schiaparelli designed to test the Rover landing system – collapsed in 2016.
The UK’s last bid to end up on Mars with the Bin lid-sized Beagle 2 investigation shared the same fate.
“There is a lot of effort that everyone works together to make sure that we are going through every technical detail, that it is healthy and that we can make it happen,” said Caroline Rodier, Exomars Lander Lead by Airbus.
“It’s Eng, but it’s very exciting.”
Caroline Rodier
The Rosalind Franklin Rover is designed to look for signs of life in the past, or even present, life on Mars.
The Rover is named after the British scientist who helped discover the structure of DNA, and has a laboratory on board to test rock and soil samples for life chemical signatures.
Nasa Mars Rover missions aimed at doing the same, but Rosalind’s Edge comes in the form of a drill that can enter two meters in the Mars soil, hopefully deep enough to find molecules that were not broken down by the hard radiation on the planet’s surface.
According to the man who led the development of the Rover, the most important landing system was built under the same roof in Stevenage as Rosalind itself.
“Before we built our Rover and had to rely on others to get it off safely. While we now play a big role in the Lander platform,” says Chris Draper, head of Mars programs at Airbus.
“When I know these guys, I’m glad we’re part of it.”
Chris Draper
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Since their earlier departure, Nasa has since joined the partnership to provide the rocket that will transport the Rover to Mars.
It will be launched in 2028, and if everything is going to plan, Rosalind Franklin can drill in the surface of Mars in search of evidence of life by late 2030.
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