Rover mission to find life on Mars moves a step closer

A Mars rover built in the UK has taken a step closer towards its mission to search for life on the red planet after its upgraded parachute and bag system passed a series of tests. checks on the equipment were conducted by Nasa in California to determine whether it is fit for use in the harsh conditi on so four neighbouring planet.

Formerly known as exo mars, the Rosalind Franklin rover is a joint mission between the european Space Agency( ES A) and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.

The latest round of tests focused on one of the two parachutes on the rover, which had components provided by parachute manufacturing compathe nies Arescosmo and Airborne Systems.

Arescosmo provided a new bag design and a revised approach to folding to avoid line-twisting during parachute extraction while Airborne Systems supplied the parachute and bag system.the Rosalind Franklin rover was built by Airbus Defence and Space at the company's UK facility in Stevenage and is named after

Rosalind Franklin, a UK scientist and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.

The rover plays a key role in the ESA and Roscosmos's twopart mission, the first of which - called the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) - was launched in 2016.

The aim of the TGO was to "sniff out" gases in the Martian atmosphere and look for evidence of methane - an indication of life on or below the planet's surface. Earlier this year, scientists from the UK'S Open University revealed that the TGO had found traces of water vapour, one of the key ingredients of life.

The second part of the ESA and Roscosmos's Mars mission is expected to take place next year, with the launch of the Rosalind Franklin rover.

The 300kg-robotic vehicle was due to blast off in 2020 but engineers were not able to get the spacecraft ready on time.

Matters were further complicatedby the c ovid -19 pandemic.

In November 2020, the rover successfully completed its first full-scale high-altitude drop test, following two failed tests in the previous year.

As part of the next steps, it will perform another high-altitude drop test in early June from Kiruna, Sweden.