Recently the Aerospace, Robotics & Mechatronics and Satellite Systems & Applications Networks came together to organise an evening seminar as part of World Space Week. The title of the event was ‘Mars and the UK – Yesterday and Tomorrow’.
Speakers Abbie Hutty and Ed Chester two UK space professionals involved in Mars exploration missions outlined a number of technical challenges, including:
§ sending a spacecraft to Mars and landing on the surface
§ gave an overview of Mars exploration to date and detail the UK's contributions to it
§ discussed the Beagle-2 (the 2003 British Mars spacecraft thought lost but discovered in January this year to have actually landed successfully)
§ discussed the ExoMars (the 2018 European astrobiology mission being built in Stevenage and to which the UK is second-largest financial contributor).
Some facts from the two presentations:
- Beagle 2 was the UK’s first attempt at a Mars Landing
- HiRISE camera imagery found probable images of Beagle 2 on Mars in 2006
- Several of Beagle 2’s systems all deployed successfully
- ExoMars Rover Mission will be Europe’s first attempt to put a rover on Mars
- Key design drivers for a Mars Rover are low temperatures, harsh radiation, dust, landing, driving and inorganic (planetary protection)
- 1 Mars year equates to 687 earth days
- Rover Landing has to cope with 10-15g impact, 300kg mass and -85C temperatures.
- ExoMars will navigate autonomously
- The Rover drill will be capable of drilling down two metres below Mars surface, first time a drill of this size has been taken to another planet
- Water was first detected on Mars in 2002 as subsurface hydrogen
To find out more about why we explore Mars click here to view a video filmed at the UKSpace Conference 2015
and one on Beagle 2 and ExoMars.