Rosalind Franklin
Not all missions hoping to reach Mars managed to meet the summer deadline
The European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Rosalind Franklin rover has been beset with problems, predominantly with its giant parachutes. While these issues have now been solved, says project scientist Jorge Vago, they couldn’t be executed in time for the launch – partly due to travel restrictions imposed by COVID-19. “As it is, the earliest we will be able to execute these tests is late September 2020,” says Vago.
Rosalind Franklin – named after the British co-discoverer of DNA – is part of ESA’s ExoMars programme. Russia is providing the Kazachok lander that will deploy the rover to the surface and the Proton-M rocket which will launch it in September 2022, aiming for an arrival in spring 2023.
According to Vago, the project’s delay provides an opportunity to carry out a few improvements to the rover, such as replacing one of the spectrometers with a better-performing spare, upgrading software and electronics, and reinforcing the hinges of the solar arrays.
Once on Mars, Rosalind Franklin will use its 2m-drill to go beneath the Martian surface and search for biosignatures of past Martian life. Alongside this are cameras, microscopes, spectrometers and an organic molecule analyser. The rover will work alongside the first instalment of the ExoMars programme, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which has been at the Red Planet since 2016, to gain a complete picture of what Mars is like.
“The good new is that TGO is doing great,” says Vago, “And we have fuel for more than 20 years.”