Europe’s space mission to Mars on target
Europe’s space mission to Mars is on target for a launch in May or June 2003, the European Space Agency (ESA) said today.
Preparations for Mars Express, Europe’s first mission to the Red Planet, are well under way and on schedule, the agency said.
The statement came three days after the launch of the American space agency Nasa’s Mars Odyssey mission which is due to reach Mars on October 24.
Mars Express will consist of an orbiter carrying a package of scientific instruments and the British-led Beagle 2 lander.
Beagle 2 will be the first landing spacecraft since Nasa’s two Viking probes in the 1970s specifically designed to look for signs of life on Mars.
Mars Express is expected to reach Mars at about Christmas in 2003, after a six-month voyage.
Beagle 2 will then be jettisoned and make its own way down to a carefully selected site on Isidis Planitia - a plain just north of the Martian equator where ancient, cratered southern highlands meet the younger, smooth northern lowlands.
The lander will analyse the geology and composition of the site, study the local weather and climate, take pictures and search for the hallmarks of past or present life.
An ESA spokesman said: ‘‘Beagle 2 will scoop up soil and rock samples and analyse them there and then for some of the key chemical signatures of life.
‘‘The results will be far more telling than anything yet found in Martian meteorites on Earth, as the chances of contamination by biological specimens from Earth will be virtually eliminated.’’
The orbiter, meanwhile, will circle the planet probing it from a distance with seven instruments.
Some experts believe there may be still be water buried underground on Mars.
To investigate this possibility, one instrument will measure water loss to space and another will look for water or ice up to five kilometers below the surface.
Other instruments will analyse the planet’s thin atmosphere and produce a map of the mineral composition of Mars.
A high resolution camera on the orbiter will search for evidence of an ancient ocean over the northern plains of Mars.
ESA said Mars Express was providing an estimated 1,000 jobs across Europe.
At least 25 companies from 15 European countries were contributing to the mission, which also involved more than 200 scientists from European universities and research institutes.
Mars Odyssey paves the way for future Nasa missions.
It will spend four years mapping the amount and distribution of chemicals and minerals on Mars, searching for signs of water and gathering data on radiation hazards likely to be faced by human explorers.
